Eye, Mind and Heart
by Shargrat
Summary: The broken moon. That's when he realizes he's lost in a world different than his own. A world where characters from books and people, oh so familiar to him, live. Though no journey is without its toll, he eventually notices.
1. Chapter 1

The sweet, sweet balance between adrenaline and whatever it is that makes people feel pain starts to tip over to the pain side, to the point that I could actually feel the stabbing, pressing and pulls on muscles and bones that aren't in the right state to do so instead of the uncomfortable pulse throughout parts of my body.

A muscle spasms in a weird way in my left leg when I try to step over the snow instead of dragging my feet and pain shoots up my leg, weakening my knees. Arms flailing in the attempt to hold on one of the trees that surrounded me and body twisting trying to not hurt myself in the fall.

I had never seen snow before I got here, wherever - here- actually is. My opinion of it changed as the days went by, at first it was a bad thing, the first of many clues that signaled that something was wrong. Even though the temperature dropped the last few days, winter was still near its end a few days before the end of August. But here I found myself facing a snow covered field with nothing but my travel bag with me.

At that moment as I'm falling, the wind rushing against my face, only one word passed on my mind.

 _Bliss._

A healthy layer of snow reduces my fall enough that I feel more the sting of cold snow against the open gash on my arm than the impact.

I turn myself over to look at the sky, my chest rising and falling, pain pulsating in rhythm. _They disappeared when I killed them._ Logic and memory arguing about what I had seen.

I look down as best as I could, a sharp stab of pain shooting through my torso as I do so, tallying the damages, fighting through the haze to figure out how to fix it.

I could feel the warm blood running down one of my arms, damping the sleeve of both shirt and sweater and tinging the white snow. The left still holding the knife even broken as it was, my knuckles white against the purple and red, blood deprived skin.

My leg wasn't much better, the dark jeans even darker around the gash that was ripped open on my calf, blood spreading on the white snow.

My chest hurt as I try to move, the air feeling like it is being squeezed out of my lungs. Static fills my mind, jumbling my thoughts.

My back is against the snow again, fatigue showing its signs, burning limbs appearing to weigh too much. One deep breath, at least one as long as I could, preparing myself for the agony as muscles move, press and pull bones and flesh.

Static fills my mind once again, as pain reverberates through my body. The leather jacket slips down my shoulders easily enough, shirt and sweater I wear underneath are quickly cut, resulting in crude bandages. One more time I take a deep breath and use the strips of cloth to stanch the blood, wrapping them around my arm and leg.

Growls and barking that I have grown familiar with drive my attention deeper into the woods, I steel myself for the pain as I try to get up, broken knife still in hand. A small miracle.

I don't take even one step forward. My vision goes dark almost instantly as I try to call out. The ground seems to shift and earth and sky switch places. A rush of air, this time without the flailing and twisting, my body suddenly aches too much from fatigue. And then darkness.

The warmth I feel around my body quickly fades as a low rumble wakes me up, - _engine?_ -. Another sounds accompanies it, short, muffled and too jumbled to make any sense. The first one speeds up, the animalistic trait of the sound more apparent now. _Luci._

I reach out to the growl that develops into barking, an almost thunderous noise. The pressure of the snow moving the only thing I register, I bump on something and the growl stops.

When I open my eyes everything is blurry, masses of colors and shapes without any traits. There's agitation and the second sound returns, this time lows and highs quickly alternating - _a discussion?_ \- Whatever it is the high tone wins and one of the blurs, the one that was mostly black - _there's dark green too, not just black_ \- approaches.

The rumble starts again, the gray blob closer to the ground, - _Doggie_ \- gets even lower. I don't know what kind of understanding happened, a green tendril tipped black stretches out towards Luci that approaches slowly, and then the rumble slows down. The green and black form then gets closer and gently wipes away some white from me, the pale pink stands out surrounded by the green, one of the black tips moves and is replaced by the same pale pink, - _gloves, should've thought of that_.

I only notice how cold I was when the hand touches me on the neck. I almost craved the warmth, I appreciated, savoring each second of contact until the hand gets back.

Even without understanding what they are talking, the sounds still too jumbled to make any sense, I could understand the tone. Hers, the sound was too high pitched to be a man's voice, is a worried one while she talks to someone I can't see, almost rushed, no pauses in between words. _No, no, no, NO._

I feel my heart picking up the pace as I realize what's happening, the drum within my chest getting faster and faster against my will.

 _Not now._

Not here.

Home.

But it is useless as my arms and legs refuse to move. An attempt to look around quickly results into the hands, and this time I see them as such, tenderly holding my head still, my heart beats even faster at that despite the comforting warmth one of those provided.

Dry, cold air enters my lungs in quick and short bursts despite the pain that radiates from my chest. " **Help-** " the words get stuck in my throat, it feels dry and rough when I try to speak.

The grip on my head tightens, my heart beating so fast that I couldn't tell the intervals in-between. A pale pink face entering into focus, green eyes staring at mine. "You'll be fine."

The soothing and almost comforting voice pierces through the panic. "It's going to be okay." And she smiles, a tentative one, lips crinkling ever so slightly.

"Incoming!" a man's voice shouts and the growl comes back, the smile becoming more strained before she shouts something I don't understand.

From the corner of my eye, I see a flow of red and bronze turning in our direction followed by a figure in a bright yellow jacket much taller than the first, I see a black form seemingly dissolving into nothing. A woman, - _girl,_ \- my brain corrects - _she can't be older than me,_ \- carrying a spear as if she was accustomed to it, on her back something was peeking over her shoulder. Yellowish gauntlets enveloped the man's arms, small, rectangular bulk resting on each part of the armor. - _That's... brass?_

The green and black figure stands up, warmth lingering on my face, and she turns to the red and bronze. "Hold his head still, would you dear?" there's something with her tone, at the same time that it sounds reassuring like this was something she grew used to, it sounds rushed as if the words are fighting something that's pushing them out. All it takes is a flick, and the red spear shrinks into itself and rests on the girl's back.

She disappears from my line of sight going above my head, hands gently holding my head in place, her head peeks over, eyes, an emerald green a lot like the other woman's, locked onto mine. "Y- You'll be fine." the girl stutters in a convincing imitation of the first woman, the hope that the stammer was from the cold is betrayed by the way her eyebrows stick together and up, despite the less than genuine smile.

"How long?" I hear Green and Black say, she turns to the man, lifting her head to look at Yellow.

"On its way, around twenty minutes." the man glances at me and then deeper into the woods. "Think we could move him, Euros? There's better defense in the middle of the clearing."

She shakes her head and whatever it is she speaks next sounds cluttered, my vision blurs and I shut my eyes, when I open them again darkness starts to creep around my field of vision. A cold grip on my guts as the realization dawns on me again. _Focus_. I try to move my limbs again, the muscles tremble but are too weak to respond. _Stay awake_. I try to blink the darkness away. _STAY_. I'm almost screaming in my head now. _AWAKE_. The noises I hear sound muffled, as if I'm underwater, a high whistle that descends into a low hum draws my attention, a mass of white and gray against the orange.

Darkness takes over once again.

And then there's warmth. One hand touching my face gently, almost hesitant. Another touching my chest.

Then there were words. Above the high whistle, above everything else even though it was nothing more than a whisper. The first words sound tangled together and the warmth starts to spread. The next few are clearer, the meaning of them almost reaching me. "...death," I hear the voice say, the words resonating within me "I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."

I fall.

Who knows for how long but I fall.

It's pitch black, to the point I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed. There's no rush of wind as I fall but there's no ground to stand on either, the landscape - _could this even be called that?_ \- is barren.

I feel the touch of something, it's warm and comforting and familiar, like the hug of a parent. It envelops my being, and then there is light.

When I wake up is to something carefully lifting my wrist and a slight pressure on my index.

The act of pulling my arm towards me is instinctive and quick, even before my eyes were open the arm was already halfway through its course, my feet kicking up and pushing myself away whatever it was trying to get a hold of me, a small but hurtful pinch on my arm as I do so.

In front of me, a few steps back stands an understandably startled person wearing a white top, slightly loose, decorated with small flower drawings. Tall and looking fit, Asian descent, she has her hands in front of her in the posture to try to calm someone down. But that's not what draws my attention, what draws my eye towards it is the pair of ears on her head.

An extra pair of ears, not human and incredibly life like. _Cat ears?_

I stare at it wide eyed as it goes from ramrod straight and starts to move, my eyes widening even more.

Beeps fill the room for a moment and when she speaks it's in a quiet way. Calm, composed.

"Are you okay?" the words are drawn out in a small accent as if giving me time to think. I look around, a clear bag hanging on a pole, some liquid dripping and flowing into my veins. A monitor on the other side, - _heart monitor?_ -, green line going up and down in a frequency that slowly descended, a row of beds on the opposite wall, one of the curtains that isolated each bed was drawn. _Heart monitor, hospital. Nurse._

I close my mouth and breathe in. English, I notice. "Yes," I have to slog through, though awake, my head feels slow. The voice comes out rough, my throat stinging for the effort. "I'm… I'm okay." I settle down on the bed into a half sitting position.

A cast covers my right forearm almost completely stretching over in a way that I couldn't move my wrist. My calf is covered in bandages too, I notice the lack of feeling under the sheets covering again a good part of the limb.

"I'll go get a doctor." She says in a rushed tone and quickly paces out of the room. _No tail._

 _Maybe I did something rude._

Just maybe.

I look to the window to my right, the curtains are pulled open and reveal the landscape under the bright sun. They were the majority of the ones I could see, orthodox-looking, box-shaped buildings of varying colors and sizes. Something that reminded me of ancient Greek architecture - maybe it was the, in my opinion, overly designed columns and façades - were present in some of the buildings, that seemed to be the whimsical dream of a really weird architect, even from afar I could tell it was a weird mixture of Greek - _or were those Roman?_ \- columns sustaining Asian styled roofs, the almost white contrasting with the dark tiles.

A paper cup edges its way into my field of view. I turn my head and move back slightly, finding blue scrubs, a white lab coat on top of it and a stethoscope. I empty it easily, the water goes down and soothes some of that burning dryness on the back of my throat.

"Would you like some more?" She offers, a pitcher of water in her hand.

I shake my head. "Do you mind if I ask a few questions?" She asks after settling the pitcher on an empty chair.

"No." My voice still sounds rough, but there's no burning on the back of my throat anymore. I try to wipe some of the water from the corners of my mouth and I feel the combination of the rough, short hairs and bare, smoother skin. _Three? Maybe four days?_

The thoughts are interrupted as I hear metal sliding against metal when she draws the curtains around my bed, giving us a semblance of privacy. "Do you know where you are?" There's an edge of… something in her voice, it's barely there. Annoyance?

The map I saw a few days ago pops into my head, the weird dragon shaped continents mostly. Eastern one, the one that curiously enough is shaped like an eastern dragon. I was closer to its paw than the middle of the first curve of its neck. Two thoughts, almost at the same time _Windpath. I don't know_. "I.. I don't know." I would like to say that I had to force the doubt into my voice, but that wasn't even necessary.

"You are in the Saint Ryllis Hospital, in Mistral." _That's… more south than I thought, though it does explain the extra few days_. I must show the thoughts on my face because she continues. "You have been in and out of consciousness for four days, Mr. … " she pauses and looks at me, eyebrows twitching upwards in question. "Aoki." I hear the scratching as she writes on the chart.

Even back home my name was a different one, but there's something in the way she looks after I say my name. Curiosity, amusement? Whatever it is, dies quickly when she asks the next question.

"Where are you from?"

 _That's a loaded question._

Once again two thoughts appear almost at the same time. _Tell her the truth. Lie_. The truth would be 'I'm probably from a different universe, because I don't recognize any of the landmasses on the map that I found in a store in a mostly destroyed village that I stole from because I wanted food. Either that or I'm going crazy.' I would really like to avoid any kind of asylums.

I had chosen to lie. Almost from the moment that I had seen the moon.

"From the west. Small place." She scribbles down something on the chart again while I hope I'm a passable liar.

Her tone gets more serious, bordering worried. "Do you remember how you got here?"

I try to, but everything is just blurry, dark around the edges. Masses of form and color moving. A broken form, white against the starry darkness. The moon is in goddamn pieces.

I remember the panic, the realization that I was going to die.

Before that, running from some kind of animal that just felt… wrong. It seemed to blend into the snow, even though it was _the pitch black form of a small crocodile against the almost blindly white snow, two beady red eyes and dozens if not hundreds of sharp, short teeth_. It took me down, biting my leg with too much strength for such small body. The kitchen knife I found dug deep into its eye before it could move, my body twists in a way that the flesh gives way to the teeth. Before I could recover another one jumps at me, maws wide open. My arm comes up without a thought and that… _animal_ lands on my chest, it's incredibly heavy for its size and I could feel the bones giving in as it landed and twisted, knocking the air out of me. The rest of the fight is a blur of black, white and red that results in a broken knife and probably arm.

"Lizards," I finally say. There's this incessant beeping, I look at the doctor wondering if something was wrong, and she's on the other side of the bed, a few strands of graying hair escaped the bun and fell on her face - _when did she get there?_ -, there's this look she gives me that I'm not used to being on either side of, filled with sympathy, pity.

"It's okay," she starts and hands me another cup of water that I reach out to grab. I'm shaking so much that the water almost spills. _Why am I shaking?_ "Deep breaths," she mimics the move moving her hands up and down, slowly.

The look is still there when I calm down. "Yes, Irvibanes," she gives me a tentative smile. "They had to unlock your Aura," _isn't that one of those charlatans… more 'esoteric' things?_ "It took care of a lot of the damage, but it's healing slower than we thought," there's a small knit between her eyebrows, eyes slightly narrowed "from what we heard we thought that you would wake up within the day."

The confusion is apparently evident on my face as she continues. "The Huntress that unlocked your Aura was admitted into the hospital together with you, exhaustion symptoms. A collateral that sometimes happens." _Huntress?_ The form of a purple-clad hero pops into my head. "It's a lot to take in, I know," she says after a brief pause.

 _You have no idea._

"You'll be here for one more night, for observation, just in case." She starts, scribbling some notes on the chart. "There are some forms that you'll need to fill in to take care of staying issues if you need," and the look is back.

"Yeah, I'll need those." Saying that just made it more… real.

She nods and pulls the curtains back. "Wait," I say before she leaves, "the woman… the nurse that was here before," there's this tiny bit of guilt there. "Could you say I'm sorry to her? I think I did something bad."

"No problems." There's a small smile and a nod.

As she leaves I realize something, and then I'm wondering how I'm going to pay the hospital bills.


	2. Chapter 2

I had never broken a bone before and the closest I have ever been to go to a hospital was to visit a friend of mine, but she had been moved to the hospital in the next town the morning of the day I was going there. _Everything ended up fine. Just. Fine._

 _Not the time for this._

Interesting experience so far.

The talk with the doctor, as brief as it was, was good. It let me pick up a few things that seemed to be casually mentioned without it being weird. Common sense or knowledge that I didn't have.

So I turned to the only source of information I had at this moment.

They were kind enough to give me the remote control, maybe it helped that the only other person that was in the room with me had left. I didn't even know if I would have to pay for this too, but for someone that is going to have to pay what I assume will be a huge bill, what is a couple of… _actually, what kind of currency do they use here?_

The heart monitor's beeping is barely muffled by the sounds of the TV. I switch the channels at random. There's news, what I assumed was a rather futuristic series given the equipment they used, cartoons, there was even one of those shopping channels.

The first one wasn't giving me the information I wanted fast enough except the date, just prices going up, some coming down, whom I assumed was a celebrity adopted some kids, nothing that I knew or really cared about right now.

The next one didn't offer me anything else except badly written dialogue, judging from the little that I saw. Some things are constant in the Universe I guess.

But it's the last one is the one that surprises me.

Out of all the scenarios and situations that I could think of and imagine that would give that first notion of how different things truly were here, this came close to last. _Really_ close.

The TV showed the image of a man holding this white, thick, palm-sized block, a yellowish, diamond shaped button in the middle of it. Call now, it reads on the bottom of the screen in capital letters, twenty percent off. There was also the same faded sign I saw in that store in what I felt was almost a lifetime ago, it reminded me of the Yen symbol, but instead of the Y, there was an L.

Listening more gives me the name of the currency they used here Lien, and the object the man shows expands, the newest model of a Scroll, the man says and it was apparently used like a phone. A screen appears out of the seemingly thin air. _Holograms responsive to touch? No. It looks… solid?_ The price of it almost falls to the back of my mind if not by the actual value of it, 32000. It really seems to be like Yen then.

Watching TV gave me a good deal of information. Most of it was just present in the background or off-handedly mentioned. If it had happened once or twice I could've ignored as something particular to what I was watching, but then some terms and objects started repeating across the channels and shows. Even the news, this time proper information that I could use, was using the same terms.

Kingdoms. Airships. Real, working robots. Faunus. Huntsman. _Aura. Dust. Grimm._

Technology here is so different, to the point I couldn't even say evolved because some of it just didn't make sense. After seeing hard light constructs popular enough that they were used as phone screens and who knows what else, the robots were a bit underwhelming. The fact that they were good enough to be used as guards though, wasn't.

In the background of some shots, I can see some flying machines that look like boats, with oars that seemed to slowly row the air to move.

I notice from the corner of my eye the amused looks some of the nurses that come in once in a while give me, and it's not difficult to know why. There's probably a look of pure awe on my face as I watch someone in a talk show kind of program using Dust.

Because it's… _magic. Crystallized magic. The generic, elemental kind I think, but still…_ magic. That could somehow be used as a power source. And propellant for ammo. And somehow gave special effects to bullets.

I barely sleep through the night. I toss and turn on the bed, the thoughts of how to get back home hanging over my head. No matter what I have to do, it all starts at the same point.

Coming the morning I will be released and, according to the nurse that came deliver the forms, someone from a shelter will come pick me up, and I will fill their forms to try and get a job with all the no working experience I have.

I take one breath in. The smell of antiseptic, that could easily be described as clean or sterile, was sharp enough that in a deep enough breath I could feel the air burning as it entered my nose. Rare murmurs and hushed speaking that I couldn't quite understand from doctors and nurses outside.

I can't tell what's worse. Not knowing if the information I have is wrong or not knowing anything at all. The excitement and weird sense of pride for figuring something out had long passed, leaving me only with doubts. How much of this was true?

Magic couldn't exist. Whether I like it or not, the more rational part of me wants to discard that information. It makes no sense how a mineral could either create fire, ice or lightning just like that. But then the same part remembered that no matter how much I looked around the store so many days ago, the maps that I found all showed the same dragon shaped land. And the broken moon.

 _Different world, different rules?_

Animal people - Faunus, I remember, they _might_ not like to be called animals - are a thing here though, which makes a little part of me oddly happier than I thought. _Huh._

The morning comes, and with it, a nurse with offers of, in my opinion, too little food, even dinner had rather… regulated portions, they said something about not feeding too much food to people that had eaten too little for too long.

I'm surprised when they hand me a change of clothes that is actually mine. Grimm had gotten to it first, from what the nurse said, "they were only able to salvage this much. Sorry," she said and actually looked sorry as she handed me my things.

I sit down on a chair in the hospital lobby, the blue padded seat squeaking a little when I plop down. _A pair of pants and shirt._ I had grabbed a pamphlet on the front desk while I waited. _Wallet with money that is useless and a phone without battery. Or a charger._

I lean back on the seat, my head hitting the wall behind me. _And a jacket with teeth holes on the sleeve._ The regret of staying the night awake catching up to my body and mind. There's this prickling feeling, on the top of my head, result from neither sleeping or having coffee.

I unfold the paper, uncaring for the actual content. I cut it into squares and stuff all but one of them into one of the pockets of the pants. _Of everything that I had seen, Grimm are… scary._ I fold the square in a diagonal and the triangle in half. _Bandits and criminals I couldn't even be surprised that existed._ I open the pockets formed and fold them in half into a square. _It was probably just a gag for that one cartoon. They can't be strong enough to destroy a village._

A few more folds and the square turns into a diamond shape. _I mean, Grimm can't really track emotions, right?_

A pause and I look at the people that walk through the hospital lobby, the folded paper waiting to be completed. With exception of the hospital staff, most of the others wear Asian styled clothing, the whole short, thick robes with a band tied at the waist thing or a collarless button up that I remember seeing in those Chinese martial arts movies.

I only notice a woman that comes in because of the bright red coat that she takes off. She follows what most of the people are wearing with a thick looking, dark robe. Air is blown onto her hands and she rubs them together, there's a bounce in her step when she starts walking.

She approaches the front desk and talks with the man working there, from the corner of my eye I see both of them looking at my direction. I turn my head to look at them and see the man waving me over.

"You're Gabriel?" the woman asks and turns to the attendant at the desk, but he had taken a call on the desk phone. I nod and she extends her arm. "Name's Laurel." She has a polite smile that seems more strained when I switch the jacket from one arm to the other, showing her the cast when I go to shake her hand. "I'm here to pick you up."

When she came in I thought she seemed around the same age as me, but looking closer I could tell that she is a few years older and a tad taller than me. "Ready to go?" She points to the door.

"Yes," I put one arm through the sleeve, the cast didn't let the other arm past the sleeve so I pull the jacket over my shoulder. It was warm enough inside that I haven't felt the need to put it on earlier. The image of dark leather, white shirt and work boots that reminded me of a character in an old movie didn't really help either.

When we get outside I take one big breath in, the cold air entering my lungs and casting away some of the fatigue I felt. There's snow piled up along the path that goes from the front door to the parking lot. A slight breeze blows and I hear a small whine as Laurel wraps herself on the red coat.

"Aren't you cold?" Laurel asks, she has her arms crossed and is rubbing them.

"Nah." I breathe in again, the cold air tickling my nose. "I prefer cold like this."

The car is still warm when we get in. "So," she starts as we drive away from the parking lot. "The hospital told us that you don't have any documents." I nod, even though it wasn't a question. "You'll need to fill some things to get those ready." She continues. "Basic stuff, really. Full name, date, and place of birth that kind of thing." She motions with one hand while the other is holding the wheel.

"There's information that we'll need too. For living arrangements." She continues after I don't ask anything. "Like food allergies, or any kind of allergy, really." We stop at a red light. "Depending on the kind of work that you have experience in we could probably help with that." She switches gears and we start moving again. " Lots of forms and bureaucracy, in short." A humorless chuckle. "Any questions?"

My attention is split between what she is saying and what I see outside the car. The landscape changes from the rectangular buildings and some Japanese or Chinese inspired ones with curved and detailed roofs, to some Greek-inspired ones with a triangular façade held by columns, even though the rectangular, more 'normal' buildings remain. I only recognize it because the Greek columns are of one of the few things I actually remembered from Art class.

"Not really." It all seemed simple enough. Not wanting to people to go to the hospital because of a bad reaction to something made sense. I had questions about logistics but that would most likely be something involving politics that I wouldn't even understand. Or cared about, for now at least.

"What's that?" She points and I notice I'm still holding the folded paper.

"Oh." I have some trouble folding the shorter points of the diamond to the centerline. I notice how Laurel takes a peek once in awhile. Two more folds make the tail and the future neck, one more makes the head. I fold down the wings and pull on them. "Just a way to pass the time."

She has an amused smile as I put the paper crane on top of the panel, we stop at another red light and she reaches for it. "It's cute," a look over before she places it down again and we move. "How did you learn it?"

"Mom taught me," I smile at the memory. An ornament for the Christmas tree, a small, plastic thing that my parents bought just because I asked for one when I was… five?

There's this moment in which none of us speak, but she breaks the silence after a while. "Talking helps." She starts, the tone a bit more somber, voice lower than before. "Not about what happened, if you don't want to," she adds a bit hurriedly. "But just… talking. With anybody, really."

I haven't even noticed how I was pressing against the door, keeping the most distance as was possible inside the car. "It was cold." Shifting on the seat, I couldn't tell her everything, even I didn't know some things. "To get here, I mean." I look down at my hands, the long fingers thinner than before. I try and succeed to keep the thoughts away.

"What did you do?" A prod, her tone changes again. This time impassive, non-judgmental.

"I just had my bag with me, but now that's just…" Gone. I groan and I rub my face and it feels rough, the uneven growth of beard is still there. _Should've asked for a razor._ "I ran across a village." I continue to answer her question. " It was empty, and… it was destroyed. To think that there were people living there and then…" I blow air through my nose and breathe in again. _Focus._

"I found a map in a store," I continue, skipping the almost breakdown while looking for a real map. "There's a dog in another one, with an empty package of food and a sick look, but it's just there, looking. I get some food from under some shelves that were knocked down. There's the same bag of food that the dog was eating so I open it and leave it there." The dog barks and picks up the small bag. It picks up the bag. And starts following me. I feel a cold weight settling as my stomach seems to tighten around itself. _Where is she?_

"I start walking and the dog follows, but it starts to get dark and colder." _And the moon is goddamn broken._

I can't help but feel this stupid, little pride on what I did next, it probably shows taking from the small smile she allows to appear. Watching that survival show was worth it after all. "So I make a bow with a shoelace and a stick, make a loop with the string and put another stick in it." I motion the movement of the back and forth of the imaginary bow. There's this way to pile up wood so the fire lasts longer. I made a mistake on the first two nights, once not enough wood and the other too much. _Darwin Award worthy of a screw-up._

"Nine days walking, I think. And then this happened." I raised the cast. "And now this." I gesture to the car and then outside. That I now notice is static. "When did we stop?" I look around, and there's a building, basically a block of bricks with the triangle facade and Greek columns.

"Around the time you started a fire. Smart." She says, the small smile grows. Blue eyes, I notice "Do you feel better?" I'm still looking at the building, turn to her and nod. "Good. Now," she claps her hands together. "Let's get you settled in." 


	3. Chapter 3

The Alba shelter is a better place than I thought. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the workers and very few of the people that lived there. No one was fighting over leftovers or other things, something that I was warned about, they had a really low tolerance for that.

The place is also cleaner than I expected. Not that I assumed it would be a run down place, they clearly had enough resources that they sent someone to pick me up at a hospital after all. The off-white outer color of the building coupled with the Greek style of the facade is probably why I expected something really different from the reality.

It's a modern looking interior. The walls are painted a light blue except for one of the walls which are painted like a mosaic in a spiral of bright colors and patterns. The floor is tiled, reflecting some of the overhead lights, the ceiling is a styrofoam looking thing. Some of the furniture was clearly donated. The sofas on the entrance, one of them is patched up, are a mismatch of clearly different styles and colors.

Laurel waves at the woman on the front desk, , tells me to wait and disappears behind a door to the left, the receptionist at the desk is still typing. She's an older woman given the graying hair neatly tied into a bun. I hear the sound of another door closing and soon after she comes out with a short pile of papers.

She hands me the forms. "You'll need to read and fill these, and if you ever need a change of clothes talk with one of the staff." A smile. "Any questions?"

"Is there a library nearby?" One day, even less than that actually, watching TV doesn't fill the gap of knowledge that I know is still there. There's still the smallest part of me that believes, hopes, that there is an easy way to get back. That this, whatever it is, happens to people here. Unknowns appearing, with no idea how they got here.

She's… surprised, to say the least. Opens her mouth and closes it, and I follow her eyes when she looks at the receptionist, that looks at me with some kind of unusual amusement.

The sound of typing. "There's one, but it's a bit far, I think." Mrs. Crowe says. "It's a forty minutes walk."

The food is good, well, it's decent. Some kind of soup, or is it a stew? Something to chase away the cold coupled with bread that was a bit dry.

If not for the holes on the jacket sleeve and the cast, I would fit right in and probably just be another face in the small crowd of the library.

The first thing I go for is the computers. Not a lot of people around, I don't know if it's the time of the day or the year, but there's some that turn my way for a moment.

There's a keyboard and just the stand that an usual monitor would sit on, I press the button lit in red and it turns green, the screen appearing above the stand.

 _Okay_. I feel the butterflies in my stomach as I type in their search engine.

 _Brasil._

The mind finds ways to protect itself.

No matches. _Huh. Maybe think bigger?_

 _South America._

At least mine did.

No matches. The flutter in my stomach increases. _Maybe bigger?_

 _Earth._

There are results. A rush of relief that is soon washed away when I read it. Nothing that I could use. The Basic Elements. I scroll down. Applications of micromorphology of relevance to agronomy. One more scroll. Study on optical properties of rare-earth ions in nanocrystalline monoclinic…

 _In hindsight, maybe 'earth' wasn't the best thing to search for._

 _World_ , I type in. The flutter goes to its apex, and the mouse feels slick under my hand.

This one gets various results, even new information. _'World'_ , the first one reads, _'is a term utilized in a variety of contexts as a synonym of Remnant, or even other celestial beings similar to planets…' Remnant_. _Of what?_ I hover over the name and click on it, opening it in a new tab.

 _Other worlds,_ in a new tab, then _multiverse_ in another, _parallel universes_. And every other synonym I could think of. A desperate act, born from not being able to accept it.

No way home.

I lean back. The screen shows that a couple of hours passed already. I feel the fatigue that piled up along the day. My head is a fuzzy mess, the static is there. Hair falls over my eyes and I brush it back. Was it always this long?

It's too much information, three days, and I haven't read everything I think I need.

The Remnant page takes me to the continents, that then takes me to the Kingdoms.

Four capitals, Atlas, Vacuo, Vale and Mistral. An unrecognized one, Menagerie, a gathering of Faunus. Various other settlements and villages that rise and fall in all continents, either because of bandits or Grimm.

And these are much worse than I thought.

Grimm are a class of their own apparently. Just because Irvibanes look like crocodiles it doesn't make them reptiles. Different kinds depending on the continent some of them not even looking like an animal, which means they adapt, they grow stronger, faster and smarter. The ones I killed were young, they didn't have that white, bone-like growth on them, only pitch black, _and I still almost died for it._

I only go back to eat and rest. And as much as I would have liked to, I couldn't sleep.

It's not hard to figure out why. Strange place, with strange people. Rows and rows of them in the same large room. It's the pitch black darkness that gets to me, not that I'm afraid of it, it's the not knowing what's happening. Even if I'm assured that the chances of anything happening in here are really close to zero. All it takes is a little noise, the creak of a bed as someone moves, mumbles of sleep in the dark.

Morning comes, and I'm up. Bed sheets are taken out and delivered to someone from the staff. I shower, and I'm glad the shower area is neatly divided into cubicles instead of the, in my opinion, weird, all showers in the same area.

The warm water helps with some of the tiredness that I felt. I grab my things from the shelf, right next to the door of the cubicle, and go outside. It's one big mirror, now fogged up, going over a couple of sinks.

Dark circles under my bloodshot eyes greet me when I wipe the fog off the mirror. Dark hair, still clumped up from the water, falls over my eyes. I brush it up with my hands and dry it more. One of the things I was glad they gave me was a razor. With the 'beard', and it was a great exaggeration call it that, I looked like a teenager trying to pass off as older.

I looked tired, even if a bit more presentable now. As a kid, I was short and thin to the point that people would think I was sick. I grew older and taller, I got to my desired one meter eighty and passed it, but pale from not getting out too much. Now, I could clearly see my collarbones even under the shirt.

 _Sleeping in the woods was less exhausting._

The receptionist waves me over when I'm about to leave.

"Mrs. Crowe," If the description of giddy would fit someone, it would be her right now.

"Gabriel," I'm surprised she actually remembers my name. "A Euros Nikos left a message for you yesterday," she places a small piece of paper on top of the desk and pushes it over to me. "Something about a dog?" Her lips are pressed together, and even I could tell there is something she wants to ask.

I go to take the piece of paper. Amongst the haze of fatigue relief somehow pops up, if they're calling she's fine. Her curiosity wins over. "How do you know her?" she asks almost in a hushed tone, I couldn't squeeze the answer in the conversation before she starts talking again and I drift out.

 _Something, something. Huntress. Something, champion. Something, something._

I hold back a grunt that grows on my throat. The more she talks more I feel the pushing and prodding on my head. Don't be a dick now. "I'm sorry," I try my best to smile, and I'm sure it turns out a forced, messy thing. My voice is a bit hoarse too. "But I'm kind of…" words escape me for a moment, "busy. Is it okay if I talk to her later? When I get back?"

"Sure," she seems a little flushed.

Unlike the previous days, the walk to the library takes an hour as opposed to the rushed thirty minutes. With the novelty of the experience gone, all that is left behind is tiredness and a pounding headache.

The moment I see the building I change my mind.

I find that I couldn't stare at that screen anymore, piles and piles information locked behind the 'just right' combination of words I didn't know. No magic text from what I read, pointing me to the right direction, just more information that seemed… useless.

I just follow the same street, I don't have confidence in my sense of direction to walk around without getting lost.

I walk, almost dragging my feet, and the street soon turns into one where only pedestrians were allowed. Stores and restaurants following along the path with some breaks where it turns into another street.

The restaurants that have musicians place them near a window. _If this is a country - Kingdom- so focused on arts and entertainment, a good musician probably had a nice pull on the crowd._

The street opens up in a big plaza that takes up the rest of the block, some stands of varying sizes being set up on the edge of the area, along with the trees that surrounded the plaza. There's even a small stage, barely knee high, already set up where they were doing sound checks.

I pick a random bench and watch the people that walk around. The crowd of workers starts to get bigger and bigger. Some kind of festival? I move to the edge of the seat so my head can lean on the back rest. _I'm too tired_. My hand rests on the phone in my pocket and I close my eyes.

I haven't felt like this since… ever. There were the times I was sick, but back then I just did what I had to do and then just slept the day off, now I can't even do that. I definitely felt better in the woods.

I run a hand through my hair, _"the cast comes off at the beginning of the week"_. There are some dirty spots on my clothes, even though I stayed most of the time indoors. _"Then looking for work starts for real, I need to leave that place. Twenty-seven days."_ I hear the muffled barking of a dog.

"Come back here!" I hear a girl shouting. There's the dull thumps of paws hitting the ground followed by the sound of someone running. "Luci!" I hear the girl again and the sound grows closer.

A memory crawls out from the back of my mind, I could feel it meant something I just didn't know what.

There's the muffled bark again, this time closer. Another shout.

The memory seems to snap into place, the name. _Luci._

I feel the impact on the bench and then a weight tackling me, knocking some air out as a paw digs into my stomach. I open my eyes in a startle, and the association is knocked out of my mind.

I snap forward, almost falling off the bench, trying to get some breath back.

A push against my neck and face accompanied by a panting sound. It's cold and rough, and the sound is matched by warm breaths of something that smells off. The pushing turns into some kind of rubbing as I feel soft, warm fur pressing against the back of my head.

"Are you okay?" Someone asks. A small sound of metal clanking and the familiar warmth is gone.

I'm still coughing, trying to get some air back. A girl stands near me, holding back the still struggling dog. Long, deep red hair a bit disheveled, probably because of running judging by her clothes, pouring from under the hood she wears. Soon after another person arrives, a blonde woman, both of them have these almost glimmering, emerald green eyes.

When the girl looks at me her grip loosens just enough for the dog to get closer. It's a big animal, easily reaching my waist even if I was standing. Kind of reminds me of a gray husky, except with shorter ears and nose.

It approaches and places its head under my hand. Big, dark eyes look up at me, nose almost touching mine as I'm sitting leaning forward, a doggy grin as large as it could due to the muzzle it had around its jaw. I recognize it. _Her_. The collar only helps me to make sure of it, now clean and sparkling gold ID tag. She looks better, this time the gray and white fur is as clean as it could be, and she seems much more healthy, instead of that pile of bones and fur I left.

I can feel some pressure building up behind my eyes, can't help the smile, an actual one not the polite or forced, that feels like it would split my face if I don't hold back. All that tiredness and fatigue is gone for a moment, being replaced by this warmth as I kneel down in front of the dog.

My arms wrap around her neck, hands digging into warm, soft fur. A knot in my throat and the pressure increases "I'm sorry." The speech is muffled as I'm talking pressed against her fur. I can feel warmth snuggling against my own neck, the rough texture of the muzzle scratching me when I move.

"Isn't he…?"

I shoot up to my feet, even though it's spoken slowly and softly, to themselves. The lapse of judgment comes to an end when I hear the girl talking. I try and fail to disguise the tear wiping as something else. "Are you okay?" The woman asks.

"Yep." Sounds strained and rough, even to my ears. I feel the warmth as blood rushes to my face. _How do I explain this?_ "Sorry about the dog... it's just that… I… uh…"

A small smile and a sympathetic look. "No problem." She snaps her fingers once and though Luci turns towards the woman, she stays by my side. "It's your dog after all."

I'm confused for a moment. Something clicks, and I remember what the doctor said. "You were the one that…" Saved sounds too grand and awkward of a word, even if it's true. "Are you alright? The doctor told me what happened."

Traded glances between them, amusement mixed with something else. "Yes," a nod. "You seem better too, that's good." She says that even though there's a furrowed brow when she looks at my cast.

Luci draws my attention again by pushing her head against my hand, the smile spreads again. "I wanted to talk to you about her." She starts, and I pat myself down looking for the piece of paper.

"Yes, uh…" I pull it out of my pocket. "Euros, right? Euros Nikos?"

Her eyes narrow a bit and she smiles, the girl seems a bit surprised, eyebrows raised and looking at me. "Yes," there's a pause, and she looks at her watch. "Pyrrha, could you start setting up the stall? I'll be right there." The girl just nods and walks towards some trucks parked on the other side of the plaza.

Euros starts after we sit. "She's been with us for almost a week and I haven't seen her like this." There's a small smile, and her eyes seem to glisten from sheer amusement. "How old is she, anyway?"

"I don't really know, I met her…" being unconscious for a few days kind of screwed with my sense of time, "around two weeks ago?"

Her eyebrows shoot up at that. "Two weeks? That's… impressive?" My hand is on top of Luci's head, scratching behind her ears, I stop and she pushes my hand. I smile.

"Why the muzzle?" An open strum of a guitar draws my attention.

"It's more of a precaution." She answers, "she was rather… unfriendly after a while. I think you can take it off if you want."

There's that weird sense of pride again as I remove the muzzle and pat her head. I barely notice how quiet I'm speaking. "She's a smart one. Saved my life. A lot." A lot. _And I couldn't do it once._

"Irvibanes, right?" Euros gestures to my arm, I just nod and she hums. Amongst other things, like a fire, and probably freezing to death. "Huntsmen' animals are like that." She reaches for Luci's head, rubbing it lightly. "How's your arm?"

"Clean break in one spot, right" I point to a spot close to the elbow. "...here." I look in the distance at the stage again, there's the deeper sound of a bass playing now. "Taking it off in a few days, according to the doctor."

She furrows her brow. "So, what do you want to do about her?" Finally to the point.

"I can't take her." At least not now.

"How about later? When you're better." She probably doesn't mean the arm. "We can keep her until then."

"I would like that, but isn't it too much trouble?"

"It would be worse to fill the papers for putting her in an animal shelter. Believe me." Then she stops and takes a deep breath. "You seem to have a lot of Aura, so you could work on something with it. For a job, I mean."

"Yeah, " only two lines of work were necessary to have Aura inside the Kingdoms, military, and Huntsmen. I have to hold back the shiver I feel at the simple thought of fighting Grimm, and even if I didn't have to, the background checks probably done in the military would catch my lie. "Maybe." The instruments aren't plugged in, even if a band is assembled and joking around on the stage.

"Do you play?" When I look at her, she has one eyebrow raised. "You keep looking over there."

"A little," I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. "Guitar."

She pauses and hums. "Wait here." She leaves and talks with one of the burly men, points at me and comes back with a guitar.

"My husband sets up a stall here for the last five years, we got to know some of them." She explains after seeing the probably confused look on my face. "C'mon." A light shake of the guitar.

The padded strap of the guitar feels nice on my shoulder. It's not as cold as it was when I left the hospital, it's not a sunny day, but it's getting there. One slow, tentative strum of the open strings, the guitar seems well tuned. Even if that band hasn't gotten really close to us, they're definitely within earshot now.

I play a slow scale, used both as a warm up and to give time to think.

Some things we see on a day to day basis that get ingrained into our heads. A specific one comes to mind while I'm playing, the image of my father playing something I heard dozens of times when I was maybe six or seven, sitting on the bed, just before he was going to leave for work, the sun coming in through a window and bathing his dark shoes. The moment I thought _'hey, I want to learn that.'_

I stop and flex my fingers once. I make the starting chord and strum, I feel the bass note vibrating the guitar onto my chest. Even though there's no intro in this song I go through the chords once, following the rhythm and checking if I remembered all of it.

The starting chord is back and I begin.

There's that moment in movies, where the protagonist does their thing. Painting, dancing or playing. Whatever.

A pin drop silence. There's this palpable tension in the air. It's that moment where everything stops, all eyes and ears are turned to the showing displayed.

It wasn't quite like that for me, maybe it's because I'm not good enough to be a show-stopper like that, but maybe I just watched too much TV. The latter is more likely.

I don't have the vocal range my dad has. Even if it's a fairly simple song, no vocal acrobatics or things like that, I just couldn't quite sing in the same key as the original so I had to drop a couple to sing along my playing. There's a lot of mistakes. _But it still feels so damn good._

 _"Hey Jude."_


	4. Chapter 4

"Could you come here tomorrow? In the afternoon?" Euros asks after I finish playing, I do it staring in the distance, I find it too embarrassing to play looking at someone, but even then I feel my face heat up. There are a few claps and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, I felt less nervous when 'performing' at a school thing, and there was a lot more people there. Is this because I did this alone? "I think you should meet my old teacher."

"Sure." I feel better, for the first time since I woke up in that hospital, maybe since I woke up here I feel… okay. There's a pounding headache, my body feels weird, and I'm not even sure how long I need to rest just to get back to the shelter. _But I'm actually fine._ "And thank you, for… well, everything."

And for the first time at that shelter, I sleep.

Maybe it's that little semblance of normalcy I got back just doing something ordinary that I didn't even know I missed, for the first time in a while. And I wake up with a weird sense of dread. No dreams or anything like that. Just… fear.

 _I need to get out of here._

I'm surprised when Mrs. Crowe hands me a big envelope with some weird symbol on it. The memory takes a little to find its place. _Mistral insignia?_

Inside there's a letter, together with a hard card barely palm sized.

 _Gabriel Aoki,_ it reads. And a picture of me.

It's a bag of mixed feelings when I realize what this is. I forgot I had even applied for these documents, mostly because the thought of not having a way home was miles away from me at that moment. But now I had something that belonged only to me. There's this twisting in my stomach. Getting things, like documents, feels weird, even as necessary as they were. _I'm settling._

I can't help but think while I wait for the time go meet the man, - _person. Her teacher. Damn you English and your genderless words -_ that Euros wanted me to talk to.

Thinking what I'm going to do. Thinking how I got here. Thinking what I should do to go back. Hoping that these two have the same answer.

No information available on their internet - _and_ _I'm not even sure of the name of it here_ \- which is… disappointing, but not surprising. No information on the outside makes me turn to what I know.

Fiction. Not the most reliable source of information, just like TV, but common sense goes out of the window in some cases, especially if you're literally in a different world. A world which the moon is somehow broken for long enough that there are no records of it happening. _Which doesn't make sense because the gravitational pull would get all of the debris, right? Unless there are more gravitational fields from other celestial beings, but then…_

I breathe in. And out.

 _How did I get here?_

Most of the stories involve summoning, portals or... death. I woke up in the middle of the forest so the chances that the first happened are low. I fell asleep on the bus on the way back from a weekend at my parents. Two and three are more likely. But then again… there wasn't a bus, was there? Not even other people with me.

I decide to put that line of thought aside and read about Dust in the library to pass the hours until meeting time. _There's no use thinking about this right now._

I leave the building and follow the street to the plaza. There are definitely more people going there now.

The plaza changed a lot in barely a day. There's decoration spread around the area, paper lanterns going across the whole place, hanging high on thick threads even though it's still the middle of the day.

There's a huge number of people compared to yesterday where the only group here was the one setting up stalls. The bench I sat yesterday is now fully occupied. There's a considerable line on the stall I'm looking for.

I sigh and brace myself for all the name calling as I try to walk towards it. Not as much as I would've expected, probably because of the surrender gesture of raising hands.

The few complaints die down as Euros raises her voice.

There's a clash in the image. Maybe it's because I never saw or even thought about people of not Asian-looking wearing what I think is traditional clothes, but it actually looks good, I could only describe her tall form as sophisticated in the black kimono she wears, some strands of the tied up blonde hair arranged to fall over her shoulder.

"Hi," she's still taking the orders of a couple. "You seem busy, so I'll just wait over…" the only spot I find where there are fewer people is on the stairs that lead to the street above. It wasn't that far. "There. I'll pay attention, so just give me a sign when your professor gets here." There's this look on her face as she glances at me and then at the couple in front of her. She just nods.

I walk away with a slight sense of, what I think is, unwarranted guilt. I wanted to help. Two jobs that I saw there. Either cooking, which I'm not even sure what they're serving. Or handling orders, which I would rather avoid doing. _Nothing I could do there._

I sit down on the grass by the side of the stairs, overlooking the plaza.

Green, blue, not blonde, like Euros', but actually yellow hair. As the plaza gets fuller, people start to wander closer to where I am and I see their eyes. Purples, reds, and yellows of varying shades. Neither of which look fake. _What the hell is going on with their genetics?_ But then again, Faunus.

More time passes, an occasional glance at the stall just to make sure I'm not making people wait, and then I notice something else. Not a lot of Faunus around.

 _Another thing that is constant in the Universe, I guess._

It starts to get dark and the paper lanterns light up, illuminating the plaza in an orange glow. Lamps _do_ make more sense.

Euros' daughter starts to come up the stairs with something in her hand, I remember her name being mentioned, Pyrrha Nikos, though the last name bothers me, it's something that I know that I should remember. History, _something Roman? No, Greek?_ I can feel the memory almost there.

As she gets closer I see that Luci is with her. The dog seems to trot the rest of the way, goes under the railing and sits down by my side. No muzzle this time.

The red kimono with flower patterns and sash - _obi. Sure I remember that with no trouble, but not what Nikos means_ \- match her hair that has a single yellow flower on it.

"Hello, I'm Pyrrha," a small wave and a smile that grows truer when she sees Luci plopping her head on my lap. "Mother told me to give you these." I can't help but hesitate. "You should eat them while they're warm." The smile still there.

"Gabriel." I'm sitting close enough to the stairs that I can reach out to take the small box, the unyielding mass keeping my leg pinned to the ground, and the smell wafts over, it's onions, ginger and… something I can't quite place. Balls of batter with the sheen of something that is definitely fried. "Thank you, but… why? Your mother has done more than enough."

She tilts her head and glances at the box on my hand, I take one that had a toothpick stuck on it. "It's about your Aura." She says while I take a bite of the fried food. _Octopus? Or is it squid?_ "Mom just doesn't like to see potential being wasted if she can help it."

She looks amused and I'm sure there's a mixture of confusion and delight on my face. "What do you know about how to use it?"

I try to use the words of a book instead of my own. Explaining it as magic sounds weird because that's what it looks like to me. "You train to use it." The power of the soul, manifested in the physical world at the cost of food if you use it too much. "Or you can get it unlocked."

She nods. "But training to use it is more common than unlocking it. Do you know why?"

"There's an aftereffect on who unlocks the Aura, right? Like what happened to your mother?"

Pursed lips and she seems to be thinking. "That's one of the reasons." She says. "Everyone can use Aura, it just takes more control than people think to use it right. The more you train, the more you can use it and you can control it better." There's a pause before she smiles and continues. "My teacher made a comparison to slowly opening a faucet and blowing up the pipes."

I think about what she said. There's only so much I could learn by reading books after all. "You said 'wasted potential', what about that?"

"Oh," there's an embarrassed smile and she looks to the side. "It's just that when training the amount of Aura increases little by little until you can use it. It varies for everyone." I pat on Luci's head and get up, it's weird talking to someone while they're standing and you're sitting on the ground. "But when unlocking, it's the only time when Aura can be added from the outside. But if there's too much of a difference between them, " she pauses. "Well, you know."

An emergency, but still…

I hum. "So I have a lot of Aura?" I got nothing to compare it to, but it can't be that great if my arm is still in a cast. Or I just need to learn to control it.

"Compared to mom's when she unlocked yours." She seems to think for a second. "We had been fighting Grimm for a while, so she wasn't really full."

"You were there too?" There's a bit of surprise on her face. I frown. "Sorry, I don't really remember what happened after… well," I just raise the arm in a cast.

I hear a sharp whistle over the crowd and I look at the stall. Euros is there, waving at us. It's a bit far to know, but there are two people standing next to her on the customer side of the counter, both looking at us.

"I guess they're here." Saving still doesn't roll off as easy as it should. "Thank you, for… helping me. And for explaining all of this to me." She smiles and shakes a hand in the air as if waving my words away.

We go down the steps and I throw away the empty box. As we walk back I remember. Greek history, a pantheon of gods. I resist the urge to snap my fingers as I remember. _Victory_. That's what it is.

As we approach I notice how tall both of them are, to the point which I would have to look up if I were to talk to them. The man and woman stand out against both the thick kimonos and heavy jackets, wearing the same old western, cowboy style, though the younger one is the only one wearing a hat, dark hair falling to her back. The younger woman seems to be around Euros' age, while the other is an older man, hair white from the passage of time.

"Are you the boy Euros wanted me to talk to?" The voice is soft, loud enough just to be heard. Being called 'boy' felt weird, but 'young man' really wouldn't sound that much better. I look at her, but she's busy tending to the now shorter line, and then nod.

"I'm Gabriel."

His eyes stop for a moment on my arm. "John Chambers." He looks around. "Would you mind if we walk? Too much noise here."

Something feels… off, and I'm not quite sure what. But I owe her that much. "Sure." We do that, the dog between us.

"Euros told me about that song," is the first thing he says. I keep some distance while we walk, his steps are steady and he keeps looking forward. "That's why she wanted us to talk." We reach some stairs. "So, let's sit." He climbs a few steps and sits down. "And talk." I prefer to stand in front of him, now at eye level. Luci sits by my side.

There's a pause. And then he asks."Tell me, where are you from?"

"Outside of the walls." Not a lie. Definitely not. Technically.

He hums. "And how you know that song?" Bright blues stare at me, and there's this feeling in the back of my mind that I'm missing something. But I don't know what.

"My father taught me." A pause. "Have you heard it before?"

"In a different style, from what Euros told me." There are equivalents and parallels in this world. The language is one of them, the Greek not-Greek and Asian not-Asian architecture and clothing another one. Even without looking into it that much it's not that surprising that songs would be one of those.

"She heard it from my son when they were on the same team." Again there's that perception that something is there, even if I don't quite know what, I know it's there. And the feeling of indulging someone in one of their stories, even if you're not quite that interested. "She told me the way you played was slower." He continues. "But the way I know about is a quicker, more upbeat song. Ragtime." That annoying feeling still there. He says that all while looking at me, almost studying how I react.

There's something familiar about his name. I can't quite place it, but it's there.

A humorous smile and he shakes his head and rests it against a closed fist. "You have an accent that's not really from New York." My eyes widen at that. And he surely notices it. "Or United States, I'm guessing." He seems somewhat pleased when he pauses. "So, again, where are you from?"

 _He knows._

 _How?_

I don't answer, I can't seem to find the right words. _New York and the United States_. My mind rushes through the possibilities. And stops at one. _He is like me._ Or at least he knows someone.

"How do you know that?" My voice cracks and that small part of me is back. _I'm not alone._

"With all you've been through, would you believe if I told you I saw this?" He gestures around us. "Not you, though," he points out "I saw myself talking. Not sure who I was talking to, though."

"Also," he continues. I still find difficult to accept that, even after all I've seen. _Maybe I am going insane_. " I need to say that after almost seventy years here, I never thought I would hear Hey Jude from someone other than my family." There's a hearty laugh before he starts coughing.

 _Seventy years_. I feel a chill that I'm sure isn't from the cold, even if a breeze started to pick up. My mouth feels dry, and I swallow the nothing in it.

Even throughout the coughing, he smiles. "There are other worlds other than this. You know that now." His face is redder and the voice is softer, the smile falters for a moment and that feeling grows stronger.

 _There are other worlds than these._

There's something I've been missing in that phrase that's bothering me. I work around it, trying to remember. I read it somewhere, of that I'm sure. Not sure of where or even when. _What's the context?_

Death as a way through worlds. What I thought about earlier in the day comes to mind again. I haven't read just light novels with that.

 _The Dark Tower._

It's the first book of seven. A man chasing another across a desert. He finds a kid in a way station. A kid from New York. Jake Chambers. _No, that's just a nickname. His actual name was..._

 _Oh..._

 _Oh._

It's the implications that get to me first. And two lines of thought start almost simultaneously.

 _He died to get there. Right?_

 _He is also a character in a book. He can't be real. Right?_

A series of books that played exactly this existential shit about characters not being just characters. And not just once.

The pieces fit together, the argument between logic and memory gets pushed aside. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest now. _Again_ , I remind myself, _different world. Especially if I'm right._ And that's probably the biggest if I've thought about.

"We should probably start over. Now," He goes down the steps much more nimbly than I would've thought possible for his age. "John Chambers. Born in New York," he puts a hand forward. "Arrived here when I was eleven."

"Gabriel Aoki. Born in Brazil. Arrived here eighteen days ago." When I speak it's drawled, I hesitate as I'm unsure how to phrase this in a way that doesn't make me sound insane. "Jake?" And I'm not quite sure I accomplish that until his grip slackens for an instant. Piercing blues look at me and a smile, not amused but actually happy, grows.

"I haven't been called that in a long time." 


	5. Chapter 5

_It's…

Hmm…

_

 _It's…_

My mind blanks for a second as if stalling.-

Thinking that something is true and actually being proven that it is are two different things. The pieces fit, he _knows_ about where I come from, - or at least a world close enough to it that it doesn't really matter.- He _knows_ a song that is not from here. He _knows_ and that's what is important. The knowledge that doesn't exist as far as dozen hours of research showed me.

The pieces fit but even if the image makes sense, it's not something that I understand. But this is the first real piece of information that actually helps me and I hold onto it, the first thought forming and peeking its head from the back of my mind.

-Then it picks up again.

 _Dark Tower. Jake -John- died to get to a station in the middle of the desert. How? - There are the doors on the beach too, right? Where the gunslinger pulls two - Eddie and who else? Jake? No - From two different years, so getting back is possible. What else? They meet the author at some point -shit, does that mean-_

A torrent of thoughts and my mind feels as if it's running downhill and barely keeping up with its own legs.

It's the cold touch of Luci's nose on my hand that helps to bring me back. I didn't even notice the moment I walked past Jake and lowered myself to sit on the steps. I rub her head, hand digging into the fur of her neck and grounding myself even more. _This is real. Don't forget._

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

"You okay?" I raise my head and find Jake - _John-_ looking at me, eyebrows pushed together in seeming worry.

I look at him- for the first time, I really look at him, white-blonde hair neatly combed back. Electrifying blue eyes. Some marks of age, though not what I expect from an eighty-year-old- and then at the crowd. It's the happiness of the place that gets to me, it's the laughter, the talking. People moving from place to place, some in pairs but most in groups.

A father holds his daughter's hand, a little kid barely at his waist in size, she holds a fluff of pink that matches her clothes, and trips. There's the panicked look of the father followed by relief as he stops her fall, and simple devastation imprinted on the child's face when she sees the cotton candy on the floor.

The smell of food, scent of fried garlic and onion, the smell of frying oil, I can almost taste the caramel that the breeze brings as it blows away the savory smells. The way some of them are dressed in western clothes, t-shirts, pants, and jackets compared to what I always pictured as the traditional eastern clothing. Thick fabric enveloping their bodies, a sash holding the kimono together, various prints embellishing the clothing.

It's the Faunus, trickled throughout the crowd. Horns, antlers, and varying tails. Though never on the same person. How even fewer people are carrying weapons, some of them too young, amalgams of metal with too many joints and connections to look actually usable.

 _Similar, but not quite the same._

"Yes, it's just…" I try to find the words, but it's complicated. I settle for gesturing to him as if that answered the question.

"It's a lot to get used to." He says, somehow understanding my silence. I notice how I'm almost curled up on the stairs, hugging my legs. I straighten myself, putting my feet down a couple of steps. Luci comes up the steps and rests her head on my lap. "Do you remember how you got here?" He asks.

I try to focus. "I… don't know." And so I tell him everything, from the start. How I was on a bus coming back from my parents' place. Waking up in the middle of a snow-covered forest, even though where I come from it didn't snow. How I found a map that I followed to where I thought was Windpath. That, if it wasn't for Luci, I would've died day one instead of getting so close to it when Euros found me because she was the one that fought the few Grimm that we met.

He stays silent through the whole thing. Just nodding when I pause, a hand rolling occasionally as if telling me to keep talking.

"So, " Is the first thing he says, in quite a while "you have a phone on you?"

The question disorients me and I look at him for a moment. Then it hits me. He left in the late seventies. _Did cell phones even exist back then?_

I pat my pockets, first the pants' right one then retrieve it from the jacket's inner pocket. Even dead as it was since it got here, it's one of the few things that actually survived the trip. As I hand it over I pay attention to the phone for probably the first time since I got here and notice something, the inkling of a memory popping up.

It's still the same black phone, back scratched to hell and back even though the screen itself is mostly intact. But...

 _But._

I barely catch a glimpse of it but I'm sure the brand of the phone, written both on the back and just above the screen, are gone. _Was it always like that?_

I watch as he holds the phone by its corners, turning and studying it with some wonder, pressing the few buttons there is, to no response. And I'm sure of it, "When are you from, again?" He's still looking at it, lips forming into the closest smile to child-like I've seen.

"It wasn't like that before," I mumble, a weird feeling setting in the pit of my stomach. The dog moves, nudging me. "How did that…?"

He narrows his eyes, recalling something. "Sometimes things change… in-between," he gestures, a single roll of his wrist and I look at him, his eyes too vivid of a blue staring at the phone and it takes me a while to realize what he's talking about. He hums at that, looking it over again. "It looks like something they had here," he pauses, and stares forward, eyebrows put together in concentration "...about forty years ago, I think?" He hands me the phone back.

I look at it, the screen reflecting the lights of the lanterns hanging above us. Though the three buttons are still on the same side, the audio jack is different, a rounded rectangle on the bottom, instead of the normal circular plug. _How did I miss this?_

"You probably saw things that are familiar," he continues, "and if you didn't, you will. Things, buildings, even people." He perks up somewhat after that. "From fairy tales, comic books, even actual people." His lips quirk up for an instant.

"I saw my dad once. Someone that looked like him." He helps to bring me out of that weird stupor I feel myself falling into. The inkling of something manages to appear even if I'm not quite sure what it means. _Dad, not father. Elmer, not Roland._

Luci nudges my stomach again. "Quite the special one, isn't she?" Luci sits up the ground at my feet facing him, tilting her head. He crouches down in front of her and extends one hand that is then occupied by a paw easily bigger than his palm. "Special, alright."

"How is it? Here?" A question that is kept on the back of my mind. There's a difference between reading about this world - and I had. Three days spent, and who knows how much that covered - and being told about it. Especially by someone that is, or was, so close to your situation.

"This world is… dangerous." It's not spoken fast, the words are drawled out, with all the patience in the world. "Maybe worse than anywhere either of us has been." He has a distant look in his eyes, an odd mixture of contentment and sadness. I feel a weird pull as if something presses down on my head and something appears. _Keystone world. All-world. Mid-world. In-world. End-world._ I shake my head a bit, focusing. "Do you know the first time I realized that?"

"I used to sleep with a knife under my pillow." He laughs at, what I hope is, the sheer absurdity of it. " And when the couple that took me in, no questions asked, found out, they just… let me. Because that was okay." He pauses for a moment, "How ugly a world must be that that is okay? And that comes from the kid that shot guns and killed... things. That lived on the road, for God knows how long, because that world…"

He trails off, still with one knee on the ground and in front of Luci, "That world had moved on." I finish the phrase, a phrase I had read way too many times, recurring time and time again. I can't quite remember the ending of the story, even though I try. "But it stopped." But this feels right. And he looks at me, lips thinning into a smile.

"What do you want to do?" He stands up, breathing out and shaking some of the tension off. "Staying here? Or do you want to leave?"

"I'm leaving." The answer is immediate because the thought of staying here had never passed through my head. There's a heat in my stomach, I feel my heart pounding. The simple notion of not being able to go back...

I understand _why_ someone wouldn't want to go back. The man that stands in front of me is one of those, because his parents, from the vague memories I have, were not the best, or even good. _Not enough caring_ , that I remember. The housekeeper took a better care of him. That, coupled with a with a paradox, mental and maybe temporal - _I didn't quite understand that - pushes him into another world._

 _How long ago did I read those books? Five years? Four? Why can't I- What did he say?_

He extends a hand in an act that I think is a simple handshake, but it is much more than that.

I might not be _that_ heavy but he isn't _that_ young either, but still, he easily pulls me up into a standing position. And there's this overlap of sensations. At the same time, I feel the grip of his hand not squeezing but firm, I feel something... different.

It comes as a gentle push the moment our hands touch, though it quickly grows and envelops my hand, and I feel something in it warping, but no pain. It then does something that I could only describe as flaring. I feel pressure, even though there's no change in his grip. This something of mine is pushed and pushes back.

"Let me help you," he says. "I've been where you are. Twice. So... come live with me." I frown for an instant and in another, my expression loosens. "I can teach you about this world. About Aura." He gestures at my hand. "Think about it overnight, even if you're thinking of saying yes." Before I can answer the interrupts. "Especially if you're thinking of accepting."

He leaves after handing me a piece of paper with his address, and I'm left with that lingering feeling on my hands.

I almost miss the time to go back to the shelter. The way back is a dazed walk. Letting everything settle, accepting this. It's hard.

Dinner is unremarkable. People talk, but it feels more like background noise. I barely recall what I eat. But it's when the lights go out that I notice that.

Silence reigns again, with everything still sinking in. The silence is odd, every bed creaking and muffled talk feels like it's miles away. I rake my brain, trying to remember anything about the setting.

There are spots though, just the feeling of the memory being there even if I couldn't quite recall it. I remember reading the books, even though part their contents are still missing. I remember characters but not their names, _\- how did Roland lose his fingers?-_ or the names but not the characters they belong to, some events are missing, _\- lobster things in the beginning of the second book, after his talk -palaver- with the Man in Black -Walter -Marten -Randall. There was a woman with them -Mia,- Detta- no- but I can't remember who, Roland pulls her after Eddie - junkie Eddie, convince-the-devil-to-set-himself-on-fire Eddie._

The moment which that character shines for me comes to mind.

 _The big moron and the little moron were standing on the bridge over the River Send. The big moron fell off. How come the little moron didn't fall off, too? Because the little moron on was a little more on._

 _"Why did the dead baby cross the road?"_

Then Jake _\- John,_ I correct myself - comes to mind. I remember when I read the first book, I sympathized with the character - _not just a character, not anymore_ \- simply because he was the same age I was when I first read that book.

How he learns how to shoot between books four and five. Going from 'not even a teenager' to a gunslinger in the space of… _how long was that anyway?_ At the time it seemed like a small hole in the story, something that wasn't completely essential but still something I would've liked to see. Now, it makes the boy - now an old man - that much more impressive.

With that, I sleep.

 _Pain. That's the first thing that assaults me._

 _It's a burning thing from the inside. Strong enough that I barely feel my arm bent in a strange way. My leg twisted. I barely notice how breathing hurts, and how it gets shallow by the minute._

 _I feel the pain. Too much to be just from broken bones. How I imagine it would feel if you burn the nerves of someone while they're awake. I feel it growing, extending and shifting. A weird feeling, as if my skin would break. It spreads throughout my body and then focuses on one spot._

 _It's dark. I try to focus on anything but what I feel. Orange and yellow flames lighting what remains of a metal, rectangular carcass. I can't quite tell the colors, mostly light with some dark details. I see the glass shattered, the odd shimmering of flowing fire on glass mesmerizing, even where I am. I'm too far from it. I watch as the flames go up in a ball, no sound or smell except that of iron._

 _I'm propped up against something and someone, barely a silhouette against the flames carrying something, approaches. On the light of the fire, I see the bags. On the light of the fire, I see a man. His mouth moves, but there's no sound. I feel as the world darkens and lights up again. He frowns and I see his hand as it gets closer._

 _The air shifts and warps, and-_

I wake up. And the moment I can, I leave. 


	6. Chapter 6 - Famine

He wakes up.

Constricted.

There's a foul smell filling the pocket of air he finds himself in. It's dark, and rocks, rough and sharp, jam him in the ribs. Still in a daze, he tries to move, making the pain worse.

Consciousness comes to him in a flash, then.

He remembers the crack and pop of that damned thing's spine, which wets his appetite even as rage builds up inside of him. He remembers the strange cold and the searing pain that followed the gunshots.

The next thing he feels is hunger.

A bottomless pit. A burning feeling, gnawing at his insides, not even the smell of this hole in the ground being enough to stop it.

He tries to move once again, this time conscious. He feels a thick liquid sticking to him, his feet still inside of it.

He claws at the rock, taking care to not disturb the ground around him, lest all fall upon him. He digs, the efforts intensifying his hunger. His human hand bursts from the ground and he pulls himself out of the hole, breathing in the fresh air.

The world is different, that's the first thing he notices.

His head darts around, dark hair matted with a mixture of dirt and that sludge slapping his face as he does, studying the forest he emerged to. It's dense, and even under the trickle of moonlight that bleeds through the branches, he could tell the colors were different, more vibrant. The smells are fresh, a light breeze carrying that sickeningly sweet smell of flowers.

He hears something behind him, from the depths of the hole, awakening him from his wonders. He peeks in, the pale moonlight illuminating it. One lizard's hand, small and covered in pitch black scales pushes out of the dark liquid, tracking some of it out and landing on the rocks with a series of clicks and grinding noises as claws, short and an oddly clean bone-white considering the black tar-like liquid it comes out of, scratch and scrape the stones.

Another hand comes out.

The liquid seems to almost inflate as it sticks to the rest of the body when it emerges.

A lizard's head bares its scarlet red teeth as it shakes off the rest of the dark liquid, only its jaw remains black, the rest of it seems to be almost glowing as the moonlight hits bone-white plates on top of its head. Eyes that seem like beads of blood are trailed on him from the hole he came from, almost shining in the subtle darkness.

There's a feeling of sheer _wrongness_ as that thing moves, attempting to crawl out of the hole, knocking rocks and dirt back into it as it does. Even if not of his own breed, he recognizes it as something unnatural and uncanny, unlike anything he had seen or remembered.

When it reaches the top the thing sniffs the air, then snarls at him, a sound too low pitched, guttural, something the young "man" didn't think was possible. And he notices how big it is, the tail itself almost as long as he is tall. He realizes what's wrong then.

It's a being that seems to be made of absence. Even under the moonlight filtered through the leaves, that thing seems almost two-dimensional. There's no reflection. No sense of depth. the white plates seem to almost float. If not for the blood-red eyes and teeth, that thing could pass off as a shadow.

He reaches out nonetheless, mind trying to find something to take hold of, to stop, his mouth watering at the thought of what's to come.

He finds a wall, tall, wide and solid, blocking his path, though there's a reaction. The thing roars and hisses as it jumps with an open wide maw aiming at his arm. One fist thrusts out, his field of view shifts and lowers as a spider leg impales the lizard-creature through and through.

He holds it up, appreciating the last moments of the twitching creature skewered on his leg. His mouth would water if it could, but his stomach makes up for it as it growls. He ignores the earlier problem, digging into his meal, fangs sink into scaly flesh as warmth trickles down the bite. He gulps down, satiating some of the hunger he felt.

A second bite meets less resistance.

The third meet none as the creature vanishes from his grasp, seemingly turning into smoke.

Something seems to thrash around his stomach, trying to find a way out. His mouth opens as sludge, pitch black and viscous, comes out, turning into the same smoke as it hits the ground.

Rage mutes hunger and sickness momentarily as he roars, as what's left behind is only a gap, craving to be filled.

The roar dies down, being replaced by a low growl as another thing comes out of the hole.

Rocks cascade down as arms come out of the hole, widening it. A different creature comes out, this one much larger than him even standing on four legs. A bone-white head, like a dog's stripped from its flesh, sniffs the air, snout still intact. Once again, there's a snarl as blood-red eyes trail onto him as the new creature stands on its hind legs, towering over him even with its back hunched. It spreads its claws, sharp and of the same bone-white of the spikes that protrude along its arms and spine.

The young "man" skitters back, six legs barely making a sound, one limp and spasming, the stump of the eighth leg twitching and flailing, even as he once more reaches out, mind trying to take a hold of something. A wall once again stops his attempt to take control, though with a more thorough search he finds the tiniest of cracks on the overbearing wall.

A roar stops his process as the thing leaps, running on all fours towards him.

He jumps when the creature comes closer, choosing to climb a tree as an oversized paw smashes into the ground, digging dirt and grass, leaving behind a small crater.

He reaches out again, tendrils moving, jamming themselves into the cracks. He feels the walls giving in, the cracks widening.

There's another roar as the thing jumps, too fast for its size. He sees the enormous paw coming at him as he pushes his legs from the tree. His weakest limb fails, and he curses, his body and the damn bumbler both.

The slash only grazes him, but he hears something over the thumping of his own heart. There's a crack, and he feels as two of his legs bend in the wrong way, making him tumble in the air.

He hits the ground, rolling around enough to hit a tree. Getting up and fumbling as his damaged legs give out and he uses his others for support. The hunger, he feels it, burning a hole through his body, feeds his rage as he lashes out.

He finds the crack again, tendrils bombarding the only weakness he found.

A roar loud enough to hurt his ears and the thing charges, the ground shaking as it stomps towards him.

He widens the crack, and it spreads. His probe studying the creature's mind.

He's stunned for a moment.

No rational thought. Not even the thinnest of threads connecting logic to ideas. Bumblers followed the simplest of logic. Even Flagg, that damn man-demon, had a line of thought, even as chaotic as it was. Even as sly and cunning as he was.

The only thing on the creature's mind is a rage. And he understood that feeling. Even in his short life. Rage from being manipulated, from being hurt just because he followed his nature, causing him to be cold, lonely and hungry. Oh _so hungry_.

He finds what he is looking for. One switch.

 _Stop_ , he snarls in his mind.

And the thing does claw raised in the air, ready to strike. The creature holds the pose, letting out rhythmical small, low growls.

He expands the tendrils and _pulls_. Delight, as the mental defenses of the creature fall.

His perspective shifts and raises. Bare feet move across the tall grass, his stomach seeming to be consuming itself, though the change slowed down his growing hunger, it didn't satisfy it.

He takes one step towards the still paralyzed creature, feeling his hold still strong. He craves for sustenance, eyeing the raised paw, easily big enough to envelop his head, the glowing eyes, that hadn't moved from the spot he found himself merely a few moments ago.

He hears a snarl as another lizard-like creature comes out of the hole.

 _Attack it_ , he commands.

The lizard is dispatched quickly. One swipe of the faux-canine's claws, and it digs into the creature's scales and flesh alike. One more and a body flies between the trees, dissipating before it hits a tree.

Cover that hole, creature. It drags its claws across the ground, knocking rocks and dirt into it. Though every last piece of rock and dirt around had been used, it still wasn't enough to completely fill the hole.

One idea pops into his head, mouth watering in anticipation.

 _Find me food._

The creature moves, four legs hitting the ground in a run. The young "man" collapses onto the ground, mentally checking his ribs. Even if they're not quite there he still feels the broken limbs, bending and prodding in an unnatural way.

"I am hungry," he mutters under his breath. _Mordred's a-hungry._


	7. Chapter 7

I wake up.

That weird haze between awake and asleep is dispelled when I don't recognize the room.

I roll out of bed, heart pumping and legs untangling themselves from the blankets. The instant of panic lasts only that. Green lights get into focus, showing the time. It's barely past seven, the morning sunlight peeks under the blinds, revealing the room.

A simple room, decently sized and bare of any kind of particular touch except for an alarm clock and the two books piled up on the desk on the opposite side of the room. A pile of clean shirts and pants, neatly folded, was placed on the corner of the table.

I feel the thumping as my chest rises and lowers with each breath. I feel the cold floor on my cheek. I hear the faint clinking of glass and voices, faint and barely audible. A hint of coffee passing through the gap between door and floor.

 _Yeah. Right._

I push myself up, folding the blankets and making the bed. I like to think of myself as an early riser, though the early part could be arguable. As a kid, I would wake up and go to the living room to watch TV until my parents got up. Waking up past nine in the morning felt like I was wasting precious time even during holidays, waking up with my mom calling me for lunch the few times it happened always gave me this weird sense of shame. _But damn do I love sleeping._

 _Oh, the dichotomy of sleep. Time, wasted in such a wonderful, wonderful way._

 _Time..._

"Still having trouble sleeping?" He speaks before I even enter the room. The question brings me back somewhat as I make my way to the kitchen through a hallway filled with some of those digital frames showing pictures as decorations. Villages, some in a better state than the others, with varying degrees of quality between photos. All of them sent by John's children according to him.

 _And of course, he has children_. One of the pictures shows a black haired girl and a blonde boy standing beside a much younger John in a full wild west attire- his combat gear, he told me-, his hat too big for the girl's head falls over, almost covering her eyes. The boy has a wide grin, showing all of his teeth, looking closer I see the tiny ears poking through the shaggy hair.

"Trouble waking up." I correct, it's not much of a difference, but still. He's sitting at the table sipping on coffee. "It happened before, I'll get used to it. That on the other hand," I point to the TV, a stand with that same weird hard-light screen floating above it. "Is going to take a little longer to get used to."

A hum. "You should eat. You've got a full day ahead of you now," he gestures to the table, fruits, and tea.

 _Training._

I feel an excitement I'm sure it'll die down by the end of the day. It was one of the first serious issues we talked about. I would be the one looking for a way back. It was the slower way, sure, but hiring people to protect me or find the way back would've quickly turned into a money-sinkhole. Also, the more-likely-than-not-chance that something would probably cross with me. Or most likely, before I do, leaving me here. _A Grimm infestation wouldn't be nice anywhere, apparently_. Maybe the place I end up might not even be Home. He made sure to tell me all the possibilities. So, just in case.

 _Also, ka. Destiny. Fate. That's… a thing here. Probably. May it take me where I want to._

Between getting me set up here and dealing with the whole homelessness thing, we spent a good part of yesterday around each other and talking. I had to get past a part of me, ingrained into me basically since I was a child, that warned me against telling personal details to people I didn't really know because that's what John is in the end, a complete stranger.

 _Considering that the only way that I could think about my name and sociable in the same sentence would be with some sort of negative form in between I think I did well._

Still, it felt a lot like when you follow someone's work. You think you know them, but what you see, what is shared, is only a fraction of the complete person.

Except that in this case it's not their own work, it's someone else's work of that person's life.

It's complicated.

Talking with him was interesting and put things into perspective for me. His life of seventy-plus years was far more interesting than my barely eighteen one. He tells me part of his story. Stories filled with adventures and perils. Hand picked ones, no doubt, from when he was around my age if my math skills still hold up here, in which everything turned out fine not mattering how bad the situation was.

He tells me about the love of his life. How he regretted not talking to her sooner about where he came from. How the bedtime stories for his children were the ones from our world.

 _I probably talked more with him yesterday than the past month with my father._

I reach out to grab an apple after sitting down, studying the only clues about what had happened to me before. It was a weird feeling, even though I had spent less than a week with a cast on my arm it felt oddly light, my wrist a bit stiff for the first couple of hours after removing it. Scars, irregular spots of light colored skin that went up to my wrist and covered a good part of my forearm, a thin line connecting the dots.

We have breakfast while watching the news, something that I did even before here. Though I didn't ever really pay attention to it, a mixture of the haze of sleep at times and simply hearing my parents talking. I heard them talking about their lives from before they met, from before they married, after they married. Little by little, the stories molding me.

 _But I hardly ever talked to them… maybe…_

"What's on your mind?"

I shake myself off. Absent mindedly, I had finished breakfast quickly, leaving me simply staring at a TV that showed the weather forecast. Sunny days ahead, apparently.

"Reminiscing," I say, turning to him. The, already big, kitchen and the living room are connected, giving the room ample space. Couches set up around the TV, a small table with portraits, these ones with normal photos instead of the digital ones like the corridor. We had also picked up Luci yesterday, much to Euros' surprise, and she was resting by the door, curled onto herself. "Homesick, I guess." I force myself to admit. _Some regret mixed in._

A hum. Understanding.

"Let's start with training. It'll help." I say as I get up picking up the cup I used, and he gets up to do the same. "I'll wash these." I hold the cup while it's still on his hands before he lets go.

Training, according to him, entailed building up a body strong enough to use Aura effectively.

Also, learning how to use Aura.

If - _when_ \- I learn to use Aura I can, among other things, strengthen my body, though up to a certain point. Past that meant that my body would damage itself. _Aura is not almighty_ , was one of the things that John had told me. Not a flawless heal, not a perfect defense. Pain, for instance, still could be felt. You could still get drunk and get hangovers, according to John. Probably a story there.

The floor feels cold against my chest. I push myself up. John leaves the rooms for a moment, though he comes back.

 _One._

The training seems simple. Push-ups. Sit-ups. Squats. Running. Something about it seemed… amusing.

The first two were something that I made part of my routine two or three years back. Fifteen push-ups when I started, right after I woke up and before going to bed. The amount grew quicker than I thought it would, doubling that number. The amount a bit higher for the sit-ups. Forms that were probably riddled with tiny mistakes, that would probably pile up along the years.

Letting go of that routine during my stay with my parents plus barely eating for some time - _the past… two weeks, now_ \- had shown its effects. My arms' muscles, the little I had, felt… looser.

 _Ten._

 _Fifteen._

He pokes me on the back with something. A broomstick. "You lowered your back." I adjust.

 _Twenty_.

 _Twenty-five._

After the twenties, there's always a poke. Lowered back, not getting close enough to the ground, not lifting myself up all the way, legs bent.

When I reach the thirties my arms feel as if they're on fire, everything between elbow and shoulder aching. I swear I could feel the fibers tearing. The muscles on my chest stretching, and I feel the skin tightening against bone.

"Keep going." A double tap on my shoulder when I don't get up. Luci got up and walked up to us, sitting down right in front of me.

I grit my teeth and push myself, barely lifting off the ground. I turn my head mid motion when there's an odd feeling on my bicep, I see the muscle erratically twitching under my own skin.

And then… relief.

It's slow, and not as if it had gone to normal, to before I started what now feels like torture, but it had slowly bled into a bearable weight. The burning I felt on my arms receding into a comfortable warmth, familiar. I can feel the muscles not tightening up, but... strengthening? It's an odd feeling, but I keep going. I _feel_ I can keep going.

 _Forty._

 _Fifty._

"That's enough." I get up from the floor in a jump, "I don't know how much strain you can take right now, better err on the side of caution." I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, this dull thump ringing in my ears in rhythm with it. My breathing feels heavy, ragged like there was no intake of air enough to relieve me of this.

Everything seems clearer all of a sudden. I can feel the very few beads of sweat making their way down my spine. I feel the fatigue draining from my arms, and instead of that weird numb feeling, there's a gentle warmth involving all of my body.

"That," I turn to John and he pokes me in the chest with the broomstick, "is Aura. With training, you can manipulate that in many ways. Bursts of speed that you wouldn't be able to otherwise, materializing it for an attack or defense. Or subtle ways, like steadying your aim."

And then sit-ups, and squats. Every exercise pushed to the maximum I could do normally, followed by that burning feeling as if molten lead had been poured into my muscles. I feel the muscles twitching, and I _know_ they'll fail in the next repetition.

And then… relief.

Warm, familiar. Draining the fatigue from the muscles. There's a flow to it, I notice. It feels as if it seeps out of the muscles and bones, providing the energy I need to continue.

I can't tell if it's the Aura doing its things, or if it's the world itself. But… this world seems different. Not just the Faunus, or the teens that apparently are allowed to carry weapons. And not even the odd amalgamation of culture and architecture, that I'm getting more and more used to, that I see when I go for my run.

It's the colors of the world, the sun seems to shine brighter than it's supposed to for this season. The winter cold had apparently stretched out into spring more than normal, though it didn't stop them from doing the Spring Festival and I'm glad, otherwise, I would probably still be in the shelter.

It's spring, but the colors here are... sharp. Bright. An overload of colors, wondering how I didn't realize this before is what makes me notice just how… I was. Relief and gratitude fill my chest once more.

The air itself feels different. Not clearer, but… lighter? I breathe in deeply, the cold air hurting just a little, and what the air carries is different. Even though there are cars, there's no stench of exhaust filling the air.

I had moved to a bigger city to study at the beginning of the year from a seaside town, and when I came back home from time to time it felt a lot like this. There was a difference in the air, the amount of gas from exhausts of vehicles, or the winds that blew from the sea, carrying its own characteristic scent and crispness, a mixture of salt, and the refreshing winds.

The city here seems bigger than maybe both of those put together. A mountain - _and how had I missed that?_ \- in the distance still held more houses and buildings. Airships, of the two different kinds the boat-like and the spaceship-like ones, flew from time to time in and out of the construction on top of the mountain. But the air was still pure, fresh. Maybe even better than Home.

Though no sea smell.

The route I'm supposed to take for my runs was decided by John. A few turns and then a straight line to a park. Some people are already on it, doing their morning exercises, what little remains of the snow is cleared from the path. Somehow, emerald green grass pokes through the snow in some patches. Instead of a murky gray sky, the sun is out, helping to warm me against the cold breeze that blew.

And like that days go by.

I find myself building a routine by the next few days. When I wake up it's always a nice feeling, I feel… solid, as if my muscles were compressed even though there's no visible change on my body, no sudden growth of muscles and getting a six pack, but I feel a release of tension on my muscles as I stretch. Simply by tightening a fist, I could feel the difference. It was probably the closest thing to 'leveling up' I would get.

Little by little I get used to the exercises, running in the mornings and later in the afternoon. Sometimes bringing Luci with me and taking breaks.

I end up seeing a few of the same faces, either running or taking a walk. Even a few mothers from time to time, pushing around a stroller. Out of the path where people walked, on the grassy plains of the park, there were even people sparring.

It happened more in the afternoon than in the morning, though given the age of some of them that was a given. What seemed to be workers in their twenties, though some were even older mixed in, apparently blowing out some steam, seemed to either hit lighter or wear some kind of gear, mixed with some younger teens that are rowdier.

The younger ones move fast and wail on each other, some with more apparent finesse and technique than their peers. A girl, dark skin and platinum blonde hair, draws my attention because the way she fights. She, bare handed and with apparent ease, dodges and pushes away the thrust of a staff wielded by a boy.

I always had some interest in martial arts even though I had never actually practiced any myself. Something about utilizing the human body in such a way is fascinating, from the showy and seemingly impractical kicks from some martial arts to submissions and holds, exploiting the way body is constructed. _Maybe it's about perfecting something to this point._

The boy quickly spins the staff, striking her, switching from high to low. She has Aura, each strike blocked by bare forearms or hits a leg, bent and raised. She ducks when he swings for her head going for a leg sweep.

A burst of speed, she leaps at him, small chunks of dirt fly behind her and takes the offense, the boy swinging the staff in an attempt to stop her. She moves one of her arms in a small circle, taking the taking the staff and leading it with unnatural grace over her head, grabbing a hold of it. A step forward and she spins on the ball of her foot, the energy transferring up to her waist as she turns. Shoulders roll and she stretches her arm, striking him. He bounces and dirt flies up once again - _he fucking bounces twice on the ground_ \- before rolling a few times. The girl raises her arms in a victory pose and laughs.

I breathe in.  
 _  
Well..._

 _Shit._

I continue running. 


	8. Chapter 8

It's interesting how little time the exercises actually take after a while. How it isn't as tiring as it was a mere two weeks ago. My breathing is regulated, my heart doesn't feel as if it'll pop out of my chest at any moment. I had even raised the number of repetitions, though it was by less than a dozen, I could normally do without relying on Aura.

Running I had taken a like to. Maybe it's because it's one of the few times I got out of the house, though not out lack of invitations from John, he gave me money - a small stack of plastic cards that I still found weird - in case I needed anything, though those still rested in one of the drawers. A fair amount of money too, from what I've seen around.

When I'm not 'training' - the word sounds weird and doesn't seem to fit for me, it's more of a work out - I read or take care of a few of the chores. Though I stay away from cooking, making do with helping instead of doing it myself. I cooked for myself for a few months before but the guy that never really disliked anything that he has eaten probably isn't that trustworthy of a cook. The few plants and flowers that he has are kept outside, and John insists on taking care of them.

I go through books while looking for something, anything that could give me at least a hint of going back. But it's like looking for a specific needle in a pile of needles of different sizes and types.

 _Maybe - just maybe - I'll know when I see it._

Because of that, running was oddly liberating. I could focus on the moment instead of dragging myself in circles around an issue I couldn't deal with right now. I would focus on my breathing. On switching from a deliberate jog to a full-on sprint. On how my heels touched the ground first, the sole of the shoes gripping the path as I pushed myself faster and faster each day. My chest burning with pain mixed with weird delight when I went past just a little over what I could do.

I'm at the door of the house that leads into the living room-kitchen after one of the afternoon runs. I got distracted by the usual sparring some people did, some of the kids - fourteen years olds, tops, I think - still moved in a way that made me want to push myself more. They could probably beat me up.

 _Scratch that, they could definitely do it._

I hear voices inside, definitely clearer than the TV when I stop to open the door. Young voices talking cutely at something, a small growl responding. I push down the handle, opening the door and I'm met with two surprised faces as soon as I enter.

They both look up. "E - Evening," I wave at them, and I'm as surprised as they are. I wasn't aware people were coming over, though I don't think I'm really in a position to ask about these kinds of things.

The boy is barely up to my chest and definitely not into his teens, thin and dark haired, they both are, in fact. He reminds me a lot of how I was as a kid, bangs brushed to one side and falling over almost covering one of his eyes. Ears, long, sharp and triangular are standing straight up on top of his head.

The girl stands beside him, slowly moves to put herself between me and the kid. Long, dark hair, straight and smooth falls over her shoulders in disarray. I feel her eyes on me as she seems to lower herself just a bit. I notice the tail, bushy and long, matching the color of her hair. _They have the same jaw and nose, looking at them side by side makes it easier to tell._

"You're later than usual," when John speaks it's with contained cheer, from the table. The same woman that was with him in that festival is sitting with him. "Seen something interesting?"

I open my mouth and close it again. I'm sure my brow furrows a little. "Yeah," I answer slowly, "there were some people, huh… training."

He nods at that. Luci gets up and walks up to me, rubbing her head against my hand, the younger two don't get close with her, though they keep looking. "My daughter, Leona." The woman nods. Blue eyes, the same impossibly electrifying shade as John's, lock onto me. "And her kids, Eton and Maya." Again, I wave at them.

"I'm... Gabriel. I'll, huh… be right back. Shower" I make my way to the room and then the bathroom. The whole way I can't shake the feeling that I knew that girl. Though I'm not sure if it's someone I've seen while on my runs or if she's the equivalent of someone I knew. There's a term for that - not doppelgänger, it's something from the books - but I can't quite remember what it is.

She's a bit shorter than me, probably a one seventy-five to my one eighty-two. Slender and pretty, also blue eyed - though a more subdued shade than her older relatives. On the other hand, the mother was beautiful. I remember the one picture I saw of four people together on the TV stand, now I recognize two of them, Euros and Leona were on the same team - three, actually, his son was on the same team. She hadn't changed much from the little I've seen, and that was impressive considering the photo was taken around twenty years ago, according to John.

He hadn't told me they were coming, and I trust that he would if he could've. Which means that they had called and got here while I was on my run. _The boy's hair is still wet,_ I remember. _Coming here after classes?_ Their mother knew about me, she wasn't nearly as surprised when I came in. She probably heard it from someone. _Euros? Maybe John himself told her. But the kids…_ Maya had tried to get between me and her brother, even if just slightly. They didn't know.

 _But where do I know her?_

I push the thoughts away. Because _for some reason_ thinking about both a girl a few years younger than me and her mother while I was in the shower felt weird.

When I go back to the kitchen with my smell of sweaty runner replaced by soap, I greet them properly and see the bags of groceries on top of the table. John holds out a small cardboard box to me, taped closed and decorated with some kind of store brand. "Got you a charger for your phone," he says as I pick it up. "Well, Maya did, I just footed the bill."

I feel my eyes widening at that. My face feels warm even though I feel like I swallowed an ice block. There's a pit forming in my stomach. I open my mouth, trying and failing to find words.

"Y- You shouldn't…" My voice gets out small and weak. So far I had kept any expenses to a need to basis. Clothes and food. No TV except when he was here, or even the laptop he had though he rarely used that. I went to a library, had an actual card made just so I could peruse any books I needed. He had a woman coming here one day of the week to clean, and with the number of chores I did while idle, there wasn't really much of a reason for that anymore.

When I make no motion to open it, John takes the box back in his hands. "You're always carrying it around," the explanation is given matter of factly. The sky is blue, Grimm are dangerous, and you're always carrying around what is essentially dead weight. So you might as well make it not dead weight.

I can't even deny that because I actually have my phone in my pocket right now.

"It's a fairly old model, so it's hard to find just one charger, or anything really new. I looked for it. Apparently, it had to get a bunch of adapters or something like that. You'd have to ask Maya about it, I don't really understand it much."

I look over and the boy is back to playing with a belly up Luci, while Maya sits on the couch, watching either a movie or some series.

I open the box, and it's filled with packing peanuts, I was used to bubble-wrapped everything instead of this, much easier to clean. I dig around, careful to not drop any on the table, and fish out three parts and something else that I'm glad to recognize, a pair of earbuds, these still in their package. The parts are made of plastic, one of them much bigger than the other resembling an actual charger but with no cord, which is… surprising. Except when you consider the rest of things they have.

"So," Leona drawls, it's weird how her voice alone gives off the impression of kindness - though I could feel her eyes trailed on me the moment I entered the room. "Should we start dinner? You could tell me a little about yourself while we cook. Father didn't tell me much about you, just that you're from the same community."

That fits as well as anything else, I guess. "Sure. I mean, there's not much to tell. Well," I fumble with the pieces a bit, attaching one into the other, plug the bigger piece into a socket, and the smaller ones into my phone. "I'm from another universe. That's a good place to start." I say matter-of-factly. The sky is blue, Dust is a terrifically useful thing. Other universes exist.

The screen of my phone lights up as it starts to charge. So far so good.

She stops.

I feel all of their eyes trailed on me, even as John slowly places his hand on his face, even though I could see a smile creasing his skin. "You could've at least _tried_ to ease into it." We talked about this a little. His family knew that he came from another world in the same sense that you know that every story that your parents told you was true, no matter how absurd it sounded.

She turns and looks at me, and then her father. Befuddlement gives way to disbelief, and then irritation, anger. _Maybe for playing to an old man's fantasies?_

Her eyes are wide, I see the way she clenches her jaw, and even though the TV is still on the volume got turned down a little. She stares at us for a moment and I hear the huffing as she breathes in and out. In and out.

I get up, slowly, to get a glass of water. It was going to be a long talk and I can already feel my throat drying up. Maybe dinner will get a little late, it's not the kind of talk you can have while doing something else.

So, how do you go around this kind of topic?

Convincing someone through words alone that a world other than the one they know exists requires a certain level of… trust that is built over the years. Not exactly something you have for an eighteen-year old that started to live with your dad.

But for now, it would have to do.

"There's no Grimm there," I start, as good as a place as any. Though now I realize how much of an escapist story it sounds. "Which let people spread out more than here." Four focus points for civilization sounded like a bad idea if they traded with one another, but not much of a choice, I guess, " and with a little more safety. The kingdoms over there are in name only as far as I remember. We have countries, though. A lot of them." I could almost hear the song.

"How many?" The talk over here was apparently more interesting than whatever was going on the TV.

"Well," _And now, the nations of the world. Brought to you by… Yakko Warner!_ "There's the United States," I nod to John, "that's where John is from. And there's Canada, Mexico…" And I rattle on for a little more than a minute and a half. I reach Brazil saying that's where I'm from, at first trying to focus on not singing it in rhythm but starting to fail towards Syria. I roll my r's in the appropriate places, exaggerating maybe just a little - it was one of the habits that I ended picking up during Spanish classes as a joke. I'm also pretty sure some new nations popped up since then, but… good enough? "It's from a cartoon," I say as I take a sip of water. She raises an eyebrow. "I had a lot of free time as a kid." _Freakazoid was awesome as far as I remember._

I spare a glance at the living room, the TV is now more background noise than anything, both of them are looking at me. Luci is pacing around the room. I fidget in my seat.

"So those stories you told us when we were little were all true?" She asks not me but to her father that had started to unpack things while I was reciting nations. "When I was your age," she deepens her voice in an imitation of her father and trails off, "I thought that was all just… did mom know?"

And suddenly I'm an intruder. It's family business, too particular. I fidget in my seat again and notice how sweaty my palms are. I wondered what he had told them.

"She knew." He answers. "I told her, and... she believed me. No doubts, just… curious. About how life was before." I push the cup from one hand to the other with the tip of my fingers, the friction sometimes making the glass rattle against the wood. Suddenly the way the water moves seems like the most interesting thing in the world.

She hums at that. "And how did you get here?" It takes me a moment to realize she's talking to me again.

"I… I don't know," I reply, the absurdity of what I'm about to say hit me. I feel my cheeks flushing, just a bit. "I, I fell asleep before it happened." _Fire. The carcass of the bus on its side, a ball of fire rising. Glass, shattered, sparkling under the flames. Oh, so pretty._ I almost shake myself.

"It didn't take me long to realize I wasn't home, though," I continue, "there's no snow where I'm from, and when I woke up it was to a field covered in it." The animosity I felt from her was gone, replaced by something else, at least I'm not as unwelcome as before.

"I had my travel bag with me, so I just picked it up and started walking. There wasn't any sign of… anything there." I remember the dark of the wood against the white of the snow, the crunch of the snow as I walked, the way my breath condensed right in front of me.

"There was a village, or whatever remained of one, I found Luci. Found some food. A few days later, this happened." I raise my arm just a little. I'm not sure how she raises her children, but there are stories about traveling between dimensions or universes, and then bloody crippling and almost dying. "And then Mrs. Nikos and her daughter found me, unlocked my Aura, and now I'm here." There's a lull in, well, everything. I had skipped a lot of things, but nothing too serious.

I notice how Luci is still pacing and take that chance to get out of here a little. "I, I think I should take Luci for a walk. Ten, fifteen minutes tops." Down the glass of water and get up, snapping my fingers once while walking and Luci goes to the door.

"Can I come too?" I turn and look at the boy. A glance at the mom reveals a wordless conversation with her daughter. He looks at Leona, in question, that lets a small smile and a nod.

"Sure, I don't mind." Both of them get up and come with me. Maya's skin is fair, clean of any blemishes she should have for her age. She also doesn't seem to be wearing any makeup. But then again, I'm not quite sure.

It's a quiet night, it's the end of the week but still early, so people are still getting ready to go to that nice restaurant or bar. Letting out the frustrations of the week on their partner over good food and drinks. I remember the first time I drank, it was the birthday party of -

"You met Pyrrha?" Enton brings me out of my trip down memory lane inside my mind. It's something that I found myself doing a lot lately. Even if not as hard as the first few days, there's this feeling of homesickness. _I'm kind of a softie, ain't I?_

"Yeah," I drawl. It's not exactly what I expected, "why, you know her?"

He looks at me, mouth agape as if I had said the most outrageous thing he had ever heard. "I guess you really are from another world." All the tension that I still carried was suddenly gone. A smile grows, and I realize how long since that happened, which somehow just makes the situation more amusing. I laugh, even if just a little.

"Well, she fights. That much I know." _She gave me food. Those octopus thingies were good._

He scoffs at that. Apparently, he's a fan. "She fights," he repeats in a mocking tone. "She's the champion of the Mistral Regional Tournament." He gives it a pause, for emphasis. "Twice." He's definitely a fan. "And she started fighting in the tournament last year."

The tournament was only for those that didn't actually join one of the academies, though combat schools were okay. And apparently, Euros was a tournament fighter too, in her early days before she joined Haven. She had won three times, though not in a roll, which for her age at the time was something that had never happened, though now the record was three times in a roll. "And," he whispers as if he's telling a secret, "they say that maybe Pyrrha can win a third time in a roll. Maybe even a fourth! That's a record!"

He says that with his eyes almost shining in excitement. And something else. _She_ did _look good in a kimono_. And he is around that age, I think?

He stays quiet for a moment, petting Luci as we walk. Undoubtedly thinking about some kind of tidbit of information he could tell me.

"So, what, what do you plan to do?" He asks and I hum at that. _Okay…_

I breathe in. "If there's a way in, there's a way out. I just need to find it." _I also needed to find a way to earn money._ The amount of food I've been eating has increased, I notice.

"So you'll fight Grimm? I mean, it's not like portals like that is inside the Kingdoms, and you do have Aura," Enton trails off. I clench my hand as I'm suddenly aware of the scars on both my arm and leg.

"I took some out even before getting Aura," I say it with more confidence than I actually felt. More for me than for him. _When did it get this cold?_ "I'll be fine."

He looks at me, a little bit of awe in his eyes. "So, how does it feel? Aura?"

I recall that feeling. It's nice, comfortable and familiar. "Like how things are supposed to be. Natural." Or at least as close to it as it could. The seeping of relief that bleeds away the fatigue.

He falls silent for a while, but we're going back already.

"Ah," I turn towards Maya. "Thank you," she takes one step back when I stop. "For the charger I mean," I explain. "It means a lot. I can see the pictures I have there, now. And the songs," I add. "God, the songs. I'll be able to hear my music again."

"No problem," she's confused, and I don't quite blame her. You only miss the everyday things you have when you can't really use them anymore. I had listened to some music from here. Great songs, some that I will try to take back, sure. _But it's not the same._

We come back, I wash my hands and try to help around when I can. Three people in the kitchen are still too much if you're cooking for five. _Too many cooks in the kitchen…_

Dinner is completed quickly. Mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, cut at an angle and some kind of meat stew. I didn't really ask, tasted like pork, though. The meal itself is pleasant, talking fills the table. Small anecdotes about either Leona or Maya's childhood. Maya had apparently turned a bunch of seeds into full blown trees when she first discovered her semblance. While the seeds were still inside the fruits. Inside their house. It took a few days to chop down all those trees, though there was hardly any damage to the house itself.

Her kids slip out of the table and I keep listening to the stories. I pick up the dishes used, first the plates and then the glasses, and start washing them. I found doing the chores relaxing, even before coming here. It fell nicely in between mindless, mechanical task and something that you could actually focus on.

I wield the sponge as a weapon, cutting through the grease and what remains on the plate. Foam fogging my field of vision, although taking out the tougher of the adversaries under its veil. Carefully angling the tool used to pick up the stew so that water wouldn't splash me. A wet t-shirt contest wasn't in the plans for the night.

"There's not enough beds" I hear Leona say. I feel it almost as a dig at me even if the tone doesn't pass off as such. I look back, finished with the task to fight off the evils of dirty dishware, though only for the night. For they would come back, they always did.

Enton had fallen asleep on the couch, one arm, folded under his head, is resting on top of one of the sofa's own. His other arm still on top of the dog's body. Maya, though, kept on watching TV.

"I could sleep on the couch," I say and my voice cracks a bit, a small cough to clear my throat, "...if that's a problem."

She looks at me and blinks once. Her ears - the animal ones - give a little twitch. "It _is_ Friday." She seems to ponder a little. "Sure, why not."

I don't know how they'll end up choosing the rooms they will sleep in, but I go to the bedroom to change the bed sheets and to pick up a few things, it's mostly a change of clothes, though I grab one of the books I kept on the desk - a little light reading to help me fall asleep. And I feel the phone, weighing on my pocket, no doubt already charged. There's this cold, prickling sensation as I feel the butterflies in my stomach. My hands itching for the contact.

Hope. That the content mainly made out of photos - most sent to me, I never really took any pictures myself - and music is still there. The little taste of Home that I felt myself craving sometimes.

Fear. That maybe - just maybe - something changed on the way. And that the phone would forever be nothing more than a reminder. That even though things look the same, they are not.

I grab it and then I leave the room.

On the way out I see a mostly asleep Eton being guided towards one of the rooms by Maya, dragging his feet, one of his ears twitch. Maya looks at me, her lips moving upwards, even if just a little and nods at her brother, her tail slowly moving as she walks.

"I'm... not sure how you'll want to sleep, but both rooms are ready," I say, putting the clothes down on the sofa's armrest with the rest of the things.

"Oh, thank you." She walks past me, and I notice that she is as tall as I thought, standing well over me even without heels. She stops and walks back, eyes locked onto mine, frowning a little. "I… hope that you find what you want." A smile, not big, merely a small movement of the lips, the ghost of a dimple forming. "Good night."

I'm laying on the sofa, comfortable, a lamp lit by my side. I ponder about reading but for a second even as I take out my phone.

I go to the songs, index finger hovering above each title, appreciating the fact that the fear I had didn't turn out to be actually true. The songs are still there, my rock, blues, and even a few hand picked classical that I enjoyed. _But who's Tim Minchin, though?_

I go back to the main screen, scrolling down and going for the photo album.

It's random pictures, sent to me either in group chats or in private. Some place someone was traveling to, there are pictures of beaches and buildings, even a pint of beer with a nice head. I didn't drink but I could still appreciate the picture.

I sift through the photos going back a few months, there are not that many pictures, and I see the same background in a dozen of them. Photos of high school in my classroom, the last day of class, just before graduation if I recall correctly.

I click the first picture of the bunch, and it's the whole class. All forty or so, of us. All wearing the same white t shirt and dark gray pants combo of the uniform. I swipe for the next one, and the next one. I can't help but smile as I see it. One of the pictures shows what basically seems like a game of tug-of-war that I'm participating, except I'm the rope. I have the most dejected expression while in one hand I have an empty plastic cup. I can't exactly see who the girl in the photo is, but the man was a good friend.

I swipe through the pictures until there's maybe two or three left of this bunch, I had just skipped the ones that I wasn't in. And that's when I see it.

It's just me and a girl, one of my arms around her waist. She has both of hers around my torso, squeezing me, but that's not what draws my attention. It's not even the way she looks, she has this gorgeous air around her, reminding me a little of Maya, except that she's a dyed blonde instead of dark haired. _And the dimples. Just..._

It's not the similarities, it's not the differences. It's not even the way I'm smiling, a goofy one, my lips are stretched and where my eyes are closed just enough that I seem like I enjoyed myself a little more than I should've, even though there wasn't any alcohol in the drinks.

But it's the fact that I… don't remember her. _At all._

 _What…?_


	9. Chapter 9

It was something that I was proud of. One of the few things that came clearly to me without even thinking about it too hard.

I wasn't smart. Hell, I had trouble speaking when I was a kid and couldn't talk properly until I was six years old, switching letters around pronouncing even the simplest words wrong.

But as I grew up, one of the things that I could actually say I was proud of was my memory. It was easy to notice as soon as I had to actually take tests in school. I remembered things from classes to the point I didn't really need to study.

 _You could take away everything from me, but not what I knew._

Possessions could be taken and be reclaimed. Money could be lost and made back. _But what you know..._

It was something that I was afraid. Not in the same way that a kid is afraid of the dark, or how a teen is afraid that their parents will find out whatever shit they pulled.

Mental afflictions, the ones that degrade the mind to the point where all that's left is just the husk of the person. The ones where the actual person resurges simply moments at a time if they're lucky. Those were nightmarish to me.

So, why?

How can I look at a picture of someone and not know who she was?

And not the 'I don't quite remember you', I had a picture with only her. From the way we held each other we were at least friends. Time couldn't be an excuse. It hadn't even been that long. Half a year maybe?

I look through the album, going back to the pictures I skipped. She was not the only one that I didn't remember, there were two more, which makes me worry even more. I had studied with them for at least a year, some of them going as far as seven years. _How?_

I sift through the whole album, suddenly grateful that I didn't form the habit of deleting pictures.

I'm in pictures in places I don't remember. Sometimes with people I don't remember. Though some are, most of them, in fact, a direct connection, a simple look and I would know where I was, or who I was with, sometimes it takes a herculean effort to remember either the places or the people. Having to go a roundabout way, looking at dates, remembering what I was doing at the time.

 _What's wrong with me?_

The room feels too crowded and small, even though I'm the only one in it. I had brought a comforter with me, but it's on the ground now. I feel the sweat starting to form, my heart beating too fast, and my mind feels… clouded.

"What is wrong with me?" I repeat, in my mother tongue, not English, and I hear the tremble in my own voice. It's for comfort, to bring back, at least in part, a little part of the normal that I find myself now desperate for.

I don't cry. But there's this lump in my throat that makes it hard to breathe. My head hurts and weighs me down as I sit up. I feel the cold of the shirt clinging to my back and chest as I get up at the same time that the room feels unbearably hot. I'm breathing through my mouth, wheezing, almost gasping for air like I had run a marathon.

 _Normal._

Luci gets up from her little mound of fluff for a bed and gets close to me. "What's wrong with me?" I say to Luci, my voice cracks, sounding pitiful even to my own ears, as I slip down and out of the sofa and sit on the ground, knees close to my chest. I wrap my arms around the dog, pulling her closer and digging into the warm fur. There's a weak whine, and I loosen my hold just a little.

I find that it helps.

The rhythmic movement of petting her. Starting from the head, a little scratch behind the ears, slowly trailing my way down to her tail while moving just my fingers. I focus on the feeling of the fur, thick and smooth, giving way as I run my hands through it. The faint smell of - lavender? - the shampoo Euros used to bathe the dog. It's nice, calming.

"Hey," I almost snap Luci's neck when I turn. "Are you okay?"

Maya stands behind the couch, I hadn't even noticed when she got there. The moonlight seeps through the curtains, barely lighting up the room. Hair slightly ruffled and a small crease between her eyebrows. "Trouble sleeping," my voice trembles, just a bit. "I'll, I'll be fine. Thanks."

She looks at me, frowning, even if just a little. Her mouth opens and closes, and then she heads to the kitchen. I hear the small creak of one of the cupboards being open, water filling a cup. And then the sound of glass clinking against wood, as she sets it down on the table by the sofa, but I don't raise my head.

I'm terrified. My heart still pounding so hard I could feel my chest moving. Who are those people, what else had I forgotten - _not forgotten, I wouldn't forget._ Not this fast.

And just like that I'm back to a month ago. Completely lost and cold, and without any way to go back. No idea what happened, but just trying, trying as hard as I can - to find a way back, to find something, anything that would give me a clue about what happened.

I lay down on the sofa, though Luci stays by my side. I don't sleep that night, as much as I try, I find myself circling to the same question.

 _What else?_

The only sound that fills the night is the tick-tock of a clock, the electric motor of the fridge whirls itself to life almost every hour, an occasional noise as Luci yawns, the top of her head tensing up as she does that. Very rarely a car goes down the street, its headlights lighting up the room instants at a time. There's the bark of a dog in the distance, faint, barely audible.

I sigh, and get up. My shirt is soaked through with my sweat clinging to my body, it feels clammy as I pinch some part of the fabric and pull on it. I stretch, my back popping. _No reason to change clothes._ I put my shoes on and go for a run, bringing Luci with me. A quick note and I stick it on the fridge.

It's too early, so most people still haven't come out, so early that even the sun hadn't risen. The air is still cold, and it tickles my nose when I take a deep breath.

The spring had just truly begun, but there's the faint aroma of, what I think are, wild flowers spreading through the air, sweet and intoxicating.

I run around the nearly empty streets heading to the usual park. I find myself unable to stop running, butterflies thrashing around in my stomach when I do, I keep on doing it, Luci trotting along. I run until my lungs feel like lumps of lit charcoal in my chest, until fatigue accumulates in my legs, burning and weighing on them, my heart working where two beats could almost be confused as one.

I feel the relief coming as if seeping out of my own flesh, rendering the fatigue null little by little. A warmth that cuts through the cold breeze that hits me as I run.

No.

I… push it down. Reject it, even if I know it's just for a moment. With a simple show of will, I feel it receding as it simply vanishes, fatigue growing and taking over again.

I hold my breath and run faster because I know it's the last push I can do before my Aura does its thing.

The ground feels nice, it's cold and wet from the morning dew, as I throw myself at it, my chest rises and falls, I could hear my own heart beating in my ears like the drummer of a band of heavy metal.

The sun had started to come up while I was in the middle of one of my laps, so I just lay there, soaking it in. Luci lays next to me, panting.

 _I'm sorry girl._ I pet her for a while. _Long night._

I close my eyes for a moment, even though I know I won't sleep, I'm still too restless to do that. I focus on the prickling sensation of the grass and the smells. The park had been decorated with dozens of bushes filled with flowers spaced around the path along the park. I hadn't actually noticed it since it was basically winter until a few days ago, but there's this thick aroma of flowers. The distant smell of freshly baked bread assaults my nose as a breeze blows by, rustling my stomach, even if just a little.

An ensemble of birds starts their morning presentation, each section in its own key and tune. Going at it together, blending in, and making a unique piece. Reminding me too much of Home.

 _I feel… better._ Running had burned off that restless energy I had, leaving behind the normal. My head hurt a little from not sleeping, I could still feel my legs a little numb from running too much. My stomach started growling at me, reminding me that exercising consumed more energy and that I should know that by now.

I open my eyes. The grass was the greenest thing I had ever seen, the sunlight hitting the dew, making it shine and sparkle as a breeze moved the grass.

 _John… Jake could help me._

That little flash of a memory gets put in the back of my mind as I hear the beating of wings. It's erratic, like a baby bird's except much stronger, a caged bird that hardly ever had the chance to actually fly.

I look up, the bird is white and yellow against the blueish sky, beating its wings in a seemingly clumsy way. I follow it with my eyes as it lands on a tree nearby.

I get up, and I'm drawn to it, curious. Slowly, I approach it, looking around the trees to find it. It has this weird, deep orange circles on its face, it also has a gray band around its leg. It ran away. The bird is perched on one of the branches of the tree a bunch of other birds on the same tree, with its crest vertical, chest visibly rising and falling.

I plan a pathway up, jumping up to catch one of the branches so I could climb it. And… it's easy. One jump and I grab onto one of the lower branches. I pull myself up, up to my waist and crouch down. The bird looks at me, though some of its peers had flown away when I climbed on the tree, a few of them stayed.

"Easy there," I say, almost a whisper, putting a fist up instead of an open hand. "C'mon. C'mere."

It moves its head as if studying me, one step forward and then another. A small movement of my fist and it waggles closer and then jumps onto it.

"Good birdie." _I did not think this through._ I couldn't jump down so I have to slowly lower myself with one hand to the ground so I wouldn't startle it again. "Now," I look at Luci, and then at the bird. "What do I do with you?" _Did not think this through at all._ Some people had started their morning jogs or walks, but I hadn't noticed that, and I find them staring at me for a few moments, some more than others, before going on with their day. Climbing a tree... not the most discrete of activities.

I hear someone whistling, short and sharp as if calling for someone, the bird seems more agitated so I start going in that direction.

 _It's Punch Someone so Hard They Bounce girl._

When I find her, she's looking at trees, whistling, and then checking for noise. A small frown touches her face as it darts around, trying to find any sign of what she's looking for.

Before I have a chance to even say anything the bird chirps from my shoulder, -carrying it around on my hand was a bother, it's not because it made me feel like a pirate. At all.- It's loud and sharp, hurting my ears.

Her head snaps back, body following. " Is... he?... She?... Yours?" I ask. I think it's a male. But it's also a bird and I don't really know enough to distinguish them.

She smiles, relief washing over her face, and damn, she has a nice smile. Nice eyes, too. This different shade of green that blends in and matches too well with how she looks. And… I'm staring.

"I guess that's a yes." I put one finger in front of it, the bird jumps from my shoulder and I hand it over.

"How, how did you find him?" She pets the bird, one hand moving across its back.

"He just… landed near me." She looks at Luci, the humongous creature of a dog, and then at me again. " _Maybe_ he was on a tree."

"I saw the band on the leg. I," _have_ "had one too. If you didn't show up when you did I'm not sure what I would've done, though."

She runs the back of a finger down the bird's back, its crest is flat against its head raising just a little at the end. "Thank you so much," she extends a hand. "My little brother was trying to help by changing the food and he flew away."

"Been there," with an exception when I was little, I've always liked animals, but there was always something else about birds. "Though mine went over a wall and circled back around the house, landing on our neighbor."

She smiles a bit, "I should get back," she says, "put him back in his cage." She starts walking and then turns back. "My name's Arslan, by the way."

I feel bubbling and gurgling in my stomach. I'm pretty sure she heard it too. _Nothing like a mental breakdown and some bird catching to work an appetite._ "Gabriel."

I jog the way back, Luci keeping up with the pace. "How does a little more food than usual sound?" I ask even though I don't really expect an answer. "Yeah, I like that idea too."

 _But first…_


	10. Chapter 10

I come back when John and Leona are still having their breakfast.

A quick wave and I grab the clothes I separated last night and head to the bathroom, I feel the sweat and grime on my skin, a slightly acrid smell spreading at each movement I make. No one deserved to be assaulted by that, even less so this early in the morning.

My body is still sore from the exercises, the run of the morning was longer than the usual and hadn't really helped, at least not in that way. As warm water hits my back and shoulders I appreciate the feeling as that achiness fades, even if just a little. It washes my worries away, and even if I know it's just for the moment I'm in the shower, I take it.

Because the instant I'm out of the shower I feel a tension coming back to my body.

Hypnosis was a thing right in the first book, something Roland did so that a young Jake could remember about how he had 'left' his home world. Only to make the kid forget when he asked because the answer was a less than pleasant one.

"Ja… John." Calling the man John was already an exercise in itself. A 'sir' would still slip out from time to time, even though he told me there wasn't really a reason for it. "I need your help with something." They were both watching the news with different levels of a scowl, a protest of some kind gone awry.

He changes the channel, seeming oddly relieved to do so. I grab my phone out of my pocket and show him the picture. "I… I don't remember her."

Even though his daughter looks confused, he doesn't question me. Just a look, that's all it takes. One look and he just understands and nods. "I'll be right back. You should eat something first." He gets off the table and heads to his room.

"What's wrong?" Leona asks.

I feel my chest rising as I take a breath in and open my mouth. "It's a long…" I close my mouth and swallow, a lump in my throat. "I, I'm not sure myself."

John comes back and pulls a chair in front of me. He opens his hand, showing what he went out of the room for. It's unnecessary to show me but I know why he does it. It's a gesture to draw my attention, a signal that it's about to start.

He picks up the bullet with thumb and index, it's new, what I think is a brass casing still gleaming. It cartwheels flawlessly between his fingers as it advances across his knuckles. The fingers themselves move dexterously, minimal twitches that pass the bullet forward. It moves to between ring finger and pinky and starts circling back, the movement is smooth, oddly alluring as it picks up speed and restarts its cycle.

When I blink I realize it's slow, the effects of staying up all night catching up to me. I had actually developed the habit of doing that same thing, but with a pen, though when I did it it was slow and clumsy, my fingers moving too much and thus avoiding the perfected motion.

My eyelids feel heavy, I'm relaxed and the chair feels so comfortable that I barely feel it. Definitely tired.

I close my eyes, just for a second.

 _"_ _Do you remember her?"_

I do, we were in the same classroom since the day I changed schools. She's loud, talks too much and is too hyper at times. Somehow we grew close. But there's this one time - _last year?_ \- that jumps at me.

I remember the feel of her face buried in the crook of my neck when she hugs me. The small, ticklish feeling when she breathes, the warmth of her breath. I look around, the classroom is empty, so I allow myself this, and I rest my head on top of hers.

I remember seeing the smug faces of my friends from the corner of my eye when they come back into the classroom, just for a moment, when I don't leave.

"You could've at least told me it was your birthday, y'know?" She rests her chin on my chest as she says that, big, green eyes looking up at me and smiling. God, those dimples could kill a man.

I remember my heart, pounding in my chest. The room suddenly growing too hot.

I also remember being too… not uncomfortable, but confused. The hug had gone for too long, I had squeezed and loosened my hold on her twice before she lets go, each time lasting just a little more than the other.

She backs away just a little, still smiling, and walks off. I take a second, because I have to, to pull myself together. I breathe in, and the smell of her shampoo still lingers in the air, and out.

I take one step -

 _\- and it's as if the floor cracks and my foot sinks, and I fall forward into nothingness. I feel the burning deep within, shifting and moving. At times focusing on one place and sometimes spreading and hitting all of my body. At the same time that it feels like my skin is cracking and something will burst out of it, it feels like it'll collapse onto itself at my slight movement. I scream, at least I try -_

 _-I'm laying on a bed, my throat hurts, my voice is barely there, it's more of a dry gurgle than an actual voice. The pain spreads, and I scream, and-_

 _"It's okay."_

 _It's okay. It's okay. I'm okay._

 _I'm awake._

 _I sit up on the bed and I look around._

 _It's a simple room, big, almost everything here - there?- is made out of wood. Rustic. A table in the middle of the room, a sofa by the foot of the bed. The only thing that seems out of place in here is a blue bag that sits on the corner of the room. My bag._

 _A man sits by the bed, reading a thick book. He looks up when I move, dark eyes wide as if waiting for something. Something that doesn't seem to come and he smiles, relieved. Unruly hair brushed back, he's covered in a cloak though the hood is down. He looks young, but at the same time not. Like someone that had seen too much too fast._

 _I try to speak, but my voice is hoarse, and I can't find the words. Nothing comes to mind. My heartbeat picks up, and I feel the drum in my ears. My chest rises and falls. And the burning comes back as if eating me from the inside._

 _He gets up and approaches me, and at the same time I understand what he says, I don't. I understand the words but the meaning behind them is lost._

 _He reaches out to me but I swat his hand away, he tries it again and I repeat it._

 _I push myself against a wood wall that feels oddly warm. He tries to grab my arm again, and when I try to swat it away for the third time he grabs my wrist. I swing my arm, panicked, using my whole body as leverage, and I fall face first onto the bed._

 _I thrash around and roll out of bed, and when I hit the ground my arm goes numb._

 _His grip holds strong throughout all this. He puts a hand on my chest even as I try to struggle._

 _It feels odd as if something snapped into place. And suddenly there's understanding, I feel_ my _\- his - heart beating at a slower pace than mine, how his breathing is more controlled._

 _I breathe in, my lungs taking in as much air as it could. There's the same odd warmth to the floor as there is to the wall._

 _He takes off his hand from my chest, the burning receding, his hands slowly moving up and down and exaggerates his breathing motioning for me to do the same. I breathe in, and then out. And -_

 _Pain. As if I'm crumbling onto myself._

 _\- I wake up?_

 _I open my eyes. I'm sitting down cross legged and with my hands resting on my lap. I feel the hairs on my neck and arm standing up as if attracted to something when I breathe in. I feel cold entering my lungs despite the warm breeze. Warmth pools itself around my heart._

 _It feels nice._

 _A sweet aroma of flowers and grass as I enjoy the warmth of the sun. There are hardly any trees around,_ _though fields of green grass expand as far as I could see. The house - it's more of a cabin, really - stands tall at the foot of a small mountain. There's the distinctive sound of rustling grass as someone walks through it, I turn around, hair falling down my face._

 _"Don't stop on my account," The man says. "You learned that faster than I thought." He pauses. "I'm not really sure why I keep talking to you, though." He laughs, but it's without any humor behind it._

 _"Ah," It takes me a moment to realize what's weird. He looks at me, eyes widening in surprise. "I… understand-_

 _Pain._

 _"-you guide it to your left hand. Do you feel the flow of it?" He speaks about it with an odd mixture of childish glee and passion. "Starting from your heart. Warmth._ _Spreading through every cell of your body, flowing, like blood. I think you'll get bet-"_

 _-The sky is dark and I'm running. I'm carrying a bag, clinging to it, as if my life depended on it, despite its weight. I -_

I wake up.

My head hurt as if I had a bad caffeine withdrawal. With the exception of a light that seeped through a cracked open door, the room was dark, and even that makes me flinch and shut my eyes as I feel knives digging into my brain. I had sweat through the shirt, and it clings to my body, cold and uncomfortable.

Early afternoon, maybe?

My body feels sore and heavy, the burning in my chest more than just a memory. It still hurt, even though it didn't come close to what I felt before. I slept for at least six hours, but I'm still tired, I try moving around, shifting on the bed, just to stop when the stabbing pain comes.

So I just lay there, thinking.

Those memories were… weird.

It was a lot like watching a movie, but I felt and smelled things besides just seeing and hearing them. At the same time, I'm glad because I remember her now, though I'm not sure it's everything, I feel bad, my head still hurts when I try thinking about the other two. But, there's progress. Progress on something I didn't even realize was wrong, but I'm glad I found out before going back home.

 _But that guy..._

He is the same guy from that 'dream' I had just before I left the shelter. He spoke English and the way he was dressed probably meant he wasn't from my world. _At least I don't…_ I rub my face and grunt into my hands even as my head hurt. I _remember_ not understanding what he said, even though he spoke English. I remember the panic. And what was that thing he did after? _Two hearts, and two sets of lungs._

And that field. It felt more 'here' than 'there', the bright green grass, almost emerald in color, gleaming under the sun that shone in a sky of the deepest blue I saw. Clear, without any clouds. The breathing itself was more than just breathing, I focused on something. _My heart?_

I breathe in, and there's an odd sensation as I draw in more than just air, warming myself, though it was nothing like the memory.

A knock on the door breaks my concentration.

John comes in, he opens the door slowly and I feel the light bathing the room even through my eyelids. "Did you wake up?" His voice is nice and low, both in tone as in volume.

I nod, and my head hates me for it. "Wh- What time is it?" My voice comes out rough, hoarse. My throat feels dry and I try to clear it, but it doesn't seem to help. "What happened?"

"You remember her now, right?" I nod, slowly, barely a movement of the head. "It started with that, but then you just... fell off the chair. You didn't get out of the trance but... you were trying to dig into your own skin, scratching everything. But your Aura didn't let you." He pauses for a moment. "You were also grunting, almost… roaring."

"There's something else we need to talk about." He is kind enough to lift a chair instead of dragging it to sit down. "After you fell, something else happened. The air was thick. Hard to breathe. Luci started barking and came close to you. And that seemed to help, you calmed down." He sighs. "Something happened to you, and I don't know what."

The vague feeling of warmth is still there, down in my chest. I feel it, as I will it to flow down my arm, and it heats up my insides. A thin line, starting from my heart, gradually it goes down the shoulder like a thick syrup and I feel my elbow tensing up as it goes past the joint.

"I remembered something else," I say and clear my throat again, still focusing on controlling whatever this is. My hand is in a fist and I take it from under the covers, the warmth is pooling there, right in the center of my palm. I feel the thin hairs on my arm pulled towards it as if attracted to something.

I open my fist, and there's a glow. Faint and flickering, the simple movement of opening my hand makes the light it emit dull.

"I learned something." And this wasn't Aura.


	11. Chapter 11

"Just remember when you were exercising."

A few days passed after I remembered some things, though not all of them. I still couldn't remember everything about that cloaked guy, though I might someday, I did remember him before after all. I couldn't force myself to remember, and hypnotism for some reason didn't work.

 _Let's not think about the fact I could remember an almost two-minute song that's basically nations' names, but not someone I studied for the last seven years._

So I stuck with what I could do. Which is basically training and learning things so I could someday look for a way back. And so Aura training started.

Using Aura and letting it be used were two different things. Healing and protection were as automatic and simple as breathing. A feeling so natural and comfortable as it happens.

But using it, consciously manipulating it, proved it to be harder. Someone that trains to use their Aura instead of having it unlocked gains the perception to sense Aura and can use it even before reaching its full potential. Though it was a far cry from the full experience, they could still be hurt but simply healed faster if they focused, how well varying from person to person.

Someone that has it unlocked, on the other hand, has full Aura, but no perception of how to sense it or how to manipulate it. That's where the training John gave me came, the overbearing exercises had a point in the end.

It gives me the _idea_ of how it feels, but not really how to manipulate it.

I recall that feeling, a warmth that seems to seep out of my bones. It starts slow and uneven, a change so gradual that I thought I was imagining it, but it's there. I focus more, and that feeling grows as the warmth slowly diffuses throughout my flesh.

"Done," I say.

"Focus on your legs now." He says.

And I do that. I focus on my legs and feel the heat as it slowly flows, and there's supposed to be resistance in the way, from what John told me, to the point I wouldn't - shouldn't - be able to move my Aura at all due to how much I'm supposed to have. I feel my heart warming up, pumping something else into my body. A thin line, with a different kind of warmth than Aura, starts to run down my chest and to my legs, my focus shifts just a little to contain it.

It had taken me the few days since my memory came back to do this, and it didn't disappoint.

Because It's more than before. It surpasses the warm and nice feeling. Just by bending my knees and shifting my weight I could feel the power behind the movement. From the way my feet pushed against the ground to the way my muscles flexed. All of it announced the power behind it.

I prepare to leap, my knees extend and I feel my feet pushing against the ground.

Everything passes in a blur. Mostly greens of the grass and tree leaves and the blue of the sky. I put one foot forward to stop when the speed goes down.

But it hadn't gone down enough as I feel my knee give in as I land. I put my hands up to protect my head by reflex. The blues and greens switch again and again as I roll on the grass.

I stop and then turn on my back, staring at the sky as my chest rises and falls.

"Now I'm glad we didn't try this at home." I faintly hear John speak, some humor in his voice. I went further than I thought I would go. I thought it would've been two, maybe three meters if I pushed it, which would've been pretty good for a jump from a stand still. But I had doubled that, easily, even discounting the rolling. Though a big chunk of dirt and grass did disappear from the spot I was standing just a few moments ago.

I barely hear the whispers of the people that pass by, my heart pounding in my ears as the adrenaline kicks off. My leg ached a little, but Aura was handling that.

Luci trots over to me followed by John, tongue hanging out, somehow the doggy grin seemed directed at me. "That was awesome!" I can barely contain the smile as I sit up, looking up to John.

"I should've told you to put some Aura onto the ground you're standing too." He says, almost to himself. "But then again..." He scratches his head and shrugs.

He knees down, leaning for support with his left hand and sits down next to me. "I really thought that you would take more time to learn this." John shifts a bit and scratches Luci's ears. "That does speed some things up though. We could start sparring today after lunch if you want."

"Yeah, that would be... nice." Without the high the adrenaline gave me I could focus on what I felt. "Whatever _that_ is," I continue, "it mixed in when I tried to focus." He didn't know what it was, and I certainly didn't either. We agreed it wasn't my Semblance since, if those feverish dream-like memories could be trusted, I used it even before unlocking my Aura. "I pushed it back, I think?"

"Maybe it's helping you," he offers. "It's supposed to take longer than that to be able to use Aura that way."

 _I really need to remember those things_. I rub my temple with my right hand.

"You can stay if you want, but I'll head back first," he says, "want to get started on lunch and make a few calls."

"No, I'll go back too." I had spent enough time outside, while back at the house I could read something. There's also the fact that all of the people I know are in school right now. And I'm not quite sure what that says about me. Both Euros and Leona taught at Sanctum, the combat school that was established inside the city. _Maybe I should I meet more people?_

 _Nah._

It's a leisure walk back and on the way home I started moving around whatever that thing was in my chest. I had figured out that while I couldn't feel the same pull and warmth as I walked and breathed, simply moving around whatever it was inside of me was simpler.

A thin line of warmth spreads to my left arm, recedes and then goes to my right, the process is slow as I feel the warmth rolling from one place to the other, and requires some focus. A bit more of focus pushed into it and it goes to the center of my palm and instead of the glow, I divide it, guiding it into my fingers. I feel the tips growing warm as the odd glow starts, like asphalt in a hot day it distorted the air around it.

When we get back he goes for the phone to start making calls, setting appointments with what I think is the place we'll spar at. I decide to head to the kitchen and start on the lunch, while I couldn't exactly season things like a normal person, cutting, dicing, and chopping were things that didn't require a sense of taste.

I take out the ingredients. Washing and then cutting down the stalks of the whole head of broccoli. _Bring a pan of water to boil_. A thin and shallow cut along the first layer of the onion and I take out the unusable parts. _Take out the top, and cut the rings thinly_. _Cut those in half and start dicing._

 _Just like I saw my mom doing hundreds if not thousands of times._

When Leona came here we talked a lot. Rather, they talked and I simply listened, nodding and laughing at the appropriate times. It reminded me a lot of home. _Or how normal people should behave._

 _Maybe…_

"Did I ever tell you how I learned to do this? Cooking and the other chores, I mean." I say as I set down a forkful of pasta, I'm going to need the carbs later according to John.

I see the twitch of an eyebrow and a small smile. "Yes, you said your mother taught you," I admit I hadn't talked much to him except the times when he asked something.

"Yeah," I stab a piece of broccoli with the fork. "mom taught me before I left for college. I was going to live with my brother so, I kind of needed to learn that."

"I cooked just once when mom was teaching me." I continue, "apparently my range of acceptable food is... _wider_ than a lot of people. Made it really easy to raise me as a kid, though." I chew the broccoli. "I say 'as a kid', but…"

Lunch then becomes slower than the previous times, both of us slow our pace, something that I rarely, if ever, did. I tell him about my family, cousins, aunts, and uncles. How my godfather was a musician which meant that I didn't get to see him much.

Eventually, we finish eating, and I take the plates. I start washing dishes but we keep on talking. "I studied in the next town over. And since classes started seven thirty in the morning, and it took an hour to get there, so I had to wake up really early." My school life was uneventful, I never really practiced any sports, except on P.E., or ran into any trouble. Life was nice and simple. A bit boring at times.

"And that's where you met her?" We had talked more what the memories meant than what they actually were. An unknown ability that I shouldn't have kind of takes precedence over a girl.

"Yeah, she used to make fun of me because I was short. But it was when I was being a little… annoying. It wasn't just her, even my family sometimes joked like that, but, yeah. Mainly her." I answer. "My friends were in their…" I have to do some math, "five fives and higher and growing, while I wasn't even five feet tall yet. But, well," I gesture to myself. "Clearly that joke went away."

"Eton's starting to have those issues," he says and lets out a short laugh. "The trials and tribulations of an adolescent." His grandson was a bit on the shorter side, though judging by his mother and sister- _hell, even his grandfather_ \- he had the right genes for it.

We take a cab and the place he takes us for the spar is very different from what I expected.

The three-story building took almost an entire block, dividing itself into a shooting range underground, two floors for sparring and a gym. The windows to the upper floors showed people there, either sparring or working out, though due to the time of day there weren't that many people around.

The moment we get in I notice the receptionist calling someone, and it doesn't take long for a man to come. From his looks, he is the guy that took the 'if you do what you love' thing far too serious, a few gray hairs amongst the black show his age.

"Mr. Chambers!" He's effusive, greeting us both with a handshake, firm and quick. A smile shows his pearly whites while he guides us to some room in the back, I end up hanging back, letting them talk.

"I'm sorry for not calling you before, Nick. I thought I would come here next week but…"

"No problem Mr. Chambers." He pats John on the back and lets out a hearty laugh. "You helped my father when the business was down, so it's okay. Besides, there's not much going on around this time."

"I just came here once in a while a few years ago. It wasn't much." John told me that a lot of Huntsmen and Huntresses are known. Not that hard to imagine, considering the things they faced.

 _Though he might have undersold just how well he was_. Or still is.

The room he guides us into is large, wood racks of weapons displayed along the walls different kinds of melee weapons, from the European - I think - longer and wider blade of a two handed sword and rapiers that seem better suited for thrusting than slashes to the more Asian-looking ones, one edged blades and a double edged one that I'm pretty sure is Chinese. There's even a more different one that I'm not sure I've seen, looking more like a cross between a hook and a sword.

"So you're a swords man, huh? I'm more of an axe man myself." I only notice the guy when he gives me a solid pat on the back. John had gone farther into the room and seemed to be deciding between some kind of spear - maybe a poleaxe, they're next to each other - and a staff.

"Yeah, I've always liked them," I say. "But I also know how… bad things can get if you don't know how to handle them." I turn and decide to pick something... safer, at least as far as weapons went. _Maybe some other day._

From swords to polearms, and then spears. I see some smaller blades mounted on a rack on the wall. Anyone could grab a sword and swing it around, but there are more subtleties to it, I think. You need to mind the angle of the blade as you slash or thrust, lest your blade ends stuck in your target or even worse, break. _Though Aura is supposed to make that more difficult._ _But..._ I walk to the racks in between them, where the staves and other blunt weapons are.

 _It doesn't take that much technique to bash things. I think._

I hope.

I look over the staves, some as long as my body is. _Something short would be easier to handle. Some kind of mace maybe?_

I pick one of those up and give it a tentative swing. It's slower than I would've liked, but the momentum is easily stopped when I try. _Too slow, maybe something smaller?_

The head of the next one is a small sphere, it's easier to maneuver than the last one. A stronger swing cuts the air, but it doesn't slip off my hands.

"Did you pick something yet?" John says as he walks up to me, a staff, as long as he is tall, in hand. _Is he not using his guns? That's… better for me, actually._

"This one, I think. It's long enough that I could use both of my hands, and light enough that it doesn't stop me from using it with one."

He nods, satisfied, and the guy takes us out of the room and into an elevator to the top floor.

"Your grandkids come here from time to time too." Nick says, "Maya's turning out to be quite the fighter. So is Eton. She's been teaching them well."

We get out and he leads us to a tinted glass door and swipes a card. The door slides open, and John steps in, taking the card from Nick. I go to follow him and Nick pats me on the back.

"Good luck out there," the smile seems more strained. "You'll need it." I hear it faintly through the door as it slides close and I can't see out anymore.

 _Maybe so that people can focus more on sparring than the people watching?_

 _Also, what._

"We can set it so it's see through if you want," John says and snaps me out of my short confusion.

"No, that's okay," I answer. "Though, how are we doing this? You said we would cross that bridge when we got to it, and…" I gesture to the room. The walls are covered with light blue pads, some with boot marks on them. Clearly, some people had gotten a bit overexcited. There's a monitor showing two vertical bars side by side, going from red to yellow to green.

"We'll attack each other. You'll have time to think after each time." I'm still worried about trying to hit an eighty-year-old man. _He said it's okay as long as his Aura is up, but still…_

Suddenly, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I raise my mace in my left hand, and the first thing I realize is the distance. _Should've picked something longer._

He can hit me before I can hit him. _Maybe block and get close to enough to hit?_

I step closer to him and it's like I have goosebumps all over my body. His movement is quick, he raises the staff and strikes.

I hold my mace with both hands to block the overhead strike, and even still I feel my knees giving in the moment our weapons connect, the impact ringing through the room.

He doesn't retreat or move, simply holding me down by keeping the pressure. I feel the strain on my arms as the seconds tick by, moments that feel longer as more time passes, I look at the weapons, trying to figure out _something_ , anything to break out of this.

I feel metal grinding against metal and the pressure increasing as the staff slides forward before I see the reason why. John steps in close, his leg raises and he kicks me. Air is knocked out of me when he strikes me on my stomach, making me fall back.

"Think. What did you do?" Is the only thing he says, as he waits for me to get back up.

It takes me a few moments to catch my breath. _Think,_ he said. _What did I do? The block? No. Maybe?_ I mean, I could do it, even if just barely. _He kicked. Because he got close._ Because I had looked away, even if just for a moment.

 _Okay._

I get up, grabbing the mace and make my way to him again. Once again he strikes and I block, my knees giving in just a little. But once we're locked in the same situation, he steps closer, metal grinding against metal once again.

"Think. What are you doing?" I hear him say.

I feel the warmth seeping into my arms. I kept looking at him, so why? _He steps in closer and…_ I feel the stupidity on me to the point I would drag my hand down my face if I could. One word comes to mind.

Leverage.

The movement is awkward and shaky as I slide the contact point from the middle of the mace to closer to my hands and there's the release of pressure as I use my whole body to push away the staff. I jump in close, winding up a strike of my own.

And he stops me dead in my tracks with another kick straight onto my stomach.

Warmth pools into my torso, relieving some of the pain as I try to think. _Don't rush in? Or don't use just your weapons?_

I get up and we continue. It is no 'song of steel' as our weapons clash, he goes through the same starting overhead strike a few times before switching, always with a simple 'think' at the end of each exchange.

To each strike I had in me he counters with no apparent effort. He starts to add variation to the exercise, circling around instead of simply moving back and forth, a flurry of light strikes mixed in with a couple of heavier, more powerful ones. He aims both head, torso, and legs, moving just fast enough for me to catch up, even if just barely.

A thrust to my chest that I try to swat away proves to be a feint as he pulls back the staff making me swing on nothing. He then steps in striking me on the side of the head with the back end of his weapon.

The adding of feints on top of it all made the exercise… _complicated._

"It's probably the last time for the day, I think." He says as points to the monitor. "Better use everything you've got."

The left bar had been barely touched, a small fraction of it gone. The right one, on the other hand, had gone past the yellow, teetering on the red zone. _How does that thing even work?_

I breathe in.

 _Think. What else?_

I breathe out.

I try to remember anything that could help. Any showing of technique that I could try, maybe angling and timing my blocks to better deflect one strike, but there's nothing with a mace. I always found more interest in the barehanded section of martial arts then this.

One look around the room draws my attention to the boot marks on the padding on the walls at some points. At higher places of the wall that seem impossible to reach normally. There's a little flash as something clicks inside my head.

 _I'm a little past normal at this point._

Even though I have been taking hits more like a video game character than a normal person I had forgotten about Aura.

I breathe in again. And out.

 _Put those together and you have…_

I hold the mace lower than before, almost parallel to the ground. By bending my knees I feel my muscles tensing, the simple and pure power behind every twitch of a muscle, though oddly controlled. I let the warmth in my heart branch out in lines, of something I'm not sure what it is, spreading to my arm.

My muscles are suffused with a mixture of Aura and that, - I should really think of a name for it - I wind up the mace, pulling it back as I focus more on walking than anything else. _Focus on the ground._ I feel Aura as it seeps out of me guided by the lines, flowing into the ground in one step.

Because that's all it takes, one step. One foot forward and I lean into it, twisting on the ball of my back foot and rotating my hips. I feel my shoulder tensing up as I bring it forward, followed by the mace. I let it go, and I hear it as the mace cuts through the wind.

John hits it down and away from his body. I take that chance of an opening and lunge forward, fist already cocked back.

The blue walls fade into a blur, and John seems to be standing still. But I still see the small twitch of his arms, bringing in the staff for a strike. I barely have time to bring my arm up.

I hear a buzz, loud, like the ones they have in basketball games, though it quickly fades and sounds muffled like I had taken a dive into the water.

When I wake up I'm in a hospital. _Again._


	12. Chapter 12

_He slowly waves his hand in the air, one finger stretched out and tracing lines. Lines that stay there, hanging in the air, that odd asphalt in a hot day shimmer that seems to distort the space around it. It's hot enough that I feel the sweat starting to form on my back, the sun bathing us in all its glory. He, though, still wears the same too warm for the weather cloak and somehow seems more comfortable than I do._

 _There's a small tremble as the ground part ways and rocks, as the earth itself rises from underneath the grass. It floats up to his open palm, a mound of dirt and rock that he grasps, even as the flow of dirt and rock continues spreading itself to both sides of his grasp, slowly forming itself into a staff as tall as he is. One end continues to lengthen, the spiral of dirt and rock forming a spear head resembling a jousting lance._

 _With his free hand, he traces lines again, drawing another sign. There's a lull where nothing happens. A ball of fire appears in between us, as big as a head, floating in between us. One strand of fire seems to stretch out of the sphere, touching the tip of the spear. It spirals downward, slowly, almost like tar. The ball shrinks as the spear glows more and more with the fire._

 _He's out of breath, a stiff smile on his face. "I'll help you make some tools_

I open my eyes and there's a brief moment which I believe I'm back home, simply because I'm in pain. That all of that was naught but a dream.

My heart pounds in my chest, and there's sweat starting to slide down my forehead. My arm feels weird, an odd mixture of pain radiating from the limb and numbness. I try turning my head, a minute movement that pushes one sweat drop down, that is rewarded by a sharp pain that echoes through my spine. Though the room is dark, there's a faint ray of light hitting my eyes.

The curtain wasn't pulled all the way, leaving a brief space where the moon was angled just right so the moonlight entered the window.

I breathe in and sigh as I see the moon.

I was out for a while. I touch my face with one hand and there's less hair and more skin. _I've been here less than two days, I think. Maybe one? I look at the other arm in a cast._

 _And my arm broke again. What happened?_

I cycle through what I ended up learning, though it was more an endless cycle of how many times I got hit because I was careless. _But that last time… What happened?_

 _I jumped in and then… nothing._

 _I rushed in instead of circling around. I need to get better in how to use Aura, just doing that took too much. Maybe I could've used the walls in two bursts? Or the ceiling in three. The ceiling would've been cool. Unexpected._

The smell of antiseptic and the eventual hushed talk of the doctors and nurses reminds me of the first day I spent here. _Amongst other people and not a dog._ Though the first time would've been when Euros found me.

 _The first day I spent here, and conscious around other people._

 _Better._

 _Isn't this the same hospital?_

The room looks familiar. I think it is, it's the same blue curtains to separate each bed.

I breathe in, focusing on my heart. And that… _attraction_. I feel warmth entering as I breathe, lines gathering on my heart. _There's also this._ There's so much more to this. Whatever this is. _Better think of a name for it,_ it's not like I don't have the time right now.

With today, it makes three times. A pattern? _What is the trigger?_ The first was a simple memory. A single and short sequence, so weird that at first, I thought it was a dream. The second time was more detailed and even weirder. A series of memories, with jumps within them, showing me… _so much._ And I came back with something else from that.

And now... what I remembered was so much more than what I'd simply seen. Information and knowledge simply appeared in my head, holding an odd characteristic. At the same time, it was fresh on my mind, it was something that I knew for God knows how long. I all had to do was think about what this… warmth was and...

 _It's something I draw from the world itself,_ even without its name I knew that. Somehow. It's something that seems to help me to manipulate Aura, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Either throwing or charging in, but not both.

 _Mana?_ In a lot of settings, it was something that was particular to each person, though in some it was something that filled the air. But it was used in a different way than what I do. They used it in a more offensive way, in fireballs and ice spears like they used with Dust here. _More like what he did just now. Back then._

I look out of the window again, the moon had moved enough that if I wanted to see it I would have to shift my head a little, and pain shoots through my neck when I try to do so. But I could still see the little spots of the stars, shining against the black sky. An expanse of worlds and stars, less explored than my own, which even we had barely scratched the surface of.

I've always liked stars, there was a mountain chain relatively close to the town I lived, which facilitated the formation of clouds, so I couldn't always see the stars the way they are here. Clean, and vast darkness punctuated by shiny dots in the sky.

My father had tried to teach me that, but I never had the interest to learn about constellations or even the more useful skill of guiding myself with them, though I remembered one constellation. _Orion._ I would try to spot the same group of stars no matter the town we were in, since childhood I would do the same thing, and be amazed that it worked.

 _Aether_ was believed to be the essence that permeated the universe, making it possible for light to travel in the vacuum of space. And in the more… _fantastic_ side of things it was something gods breathed in Greek mythology. A fitting word for it… but not for me.

Qi or ki, though it has the same 'energy that fills the universe' definition, will always have the Dragon Ball association, making it hard for me to think about it seriously.

 _I need to know what's wrong with me._

John comes by in the morning. A nurse had come in the middle of the night, probably to make sure I somehow didn't get worse. A broken arm, a concussion - because those still happened, even with Aura, though mine had broken, apparently- and bruises, though those had been gone by the time I was awake.

"Mornin'," John says as he enters the room. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. Just the bother of probably another week in a cast, " the pain had gradually receded as the night went by. I could actually move my head without any discomfort now. "I'm not sure what happened," I say, sitting up on the bed. " I remember charging in after throwing the mace, but…"

"It… was a good shot, that last one." He's moving a bit more mechanically than usual, there was always a certain lightness to the way he walked, but that wasn't there now.

"I hit you first, and you blocked. Which was... good," he starts clarifying. "But your arm wasn't supposed to break like that. You were low on Aura, but not low enough for that to happen," he continues. "I don't think I overdid it, but it's been a while since I sparred with someone."

Once is an accident. I breathe in, only noticing I had clenched my jaw when I hear my teeth grinding against each other. _One time is an accident_. I keep repeating in my head, though an inkling of fear sprouts on the back of my mind.

"I should be fine to leave once a doctor comes here, I think." I finally say. _There's not much to do about that, for now._ "I feel fine."

The doctor comes and releases me without much fuss. Aura, apparently, gives you quite a bit of leeway in relation to petty things like how intact your organs are.

"This is the hospital that took care of me when I got here." I point out to John while we waited for our ride back. Though not snow filled as that day, I recognize the structures and trees that now have flowers that started to bloom. He had called someone to pick us up, probably a cab. I look around but end up lowering my voice, just to make sure. "Woke up with a nurse Faunus, checking my vitals, I think," I say. "I… didn't take that too well." I remember the way she walked out of the room, a brisk pace."Neither did she, I think."

He narrows his eyes just a little, recognition clicks in his head as his eyebrows shoot up and he lets out an oh.

"I apologized, though. Well, I asked the doctor that came later to do it." I add. "They served more food than last time too. What I think is the normal amount they give people. Apparently, giving too much food to someone that hadn't eaten for too long makes them sick."

"You should still be hungry," John points out. I had eaten, even though I wasn't used to eating that much in the morning I still felt unsatisfied. "You started to use your Aura after all."

I nod. "Yeah, a little." It's an odd thing, feeling this hungry this early.

"We'll go out for lunch later," he says. "It's a place aimed at Huntsmen, so food is relatively cheap."

I hum, trying to figure out more how to say something than what to say. "I… remembered something else. About that… guy. About whatever _this_ is." I continue, gesturing to my head. "He made a spear out of earth and rocks. He made a fireball, and I could feel the heat…" He puts a hand on my shoulder, more pressure than just a touch, and I stop.

"We… well, you shouldn't talk about it that much," he says. "I'll explain it later" and points to a car that's slowing down.

He's the first to move, it is not a cab which makes me hesitate for a moment. I open the door and enter the car slowly, unsure of what to do. I see who's driving. _For how long was I really out?_ "Is it weekend already?" Escapes my mouth before I could actually think.

Leona turns to me, one moment where she's still processing what I asked. "What?"

"You weren't knocked out for that long," John intervenes, clarifying.

I see the same motion of the eyebrows raising, and though she doesn't let out the oh, I see it as she mouths it. "Yeah, my classes start later in the morning." She adds as we start moving. "So how's the arm?"

"A week in the cast, same as last time. Even the same arm."

"Yeah. It probably heals sooner, but there was a study made a few years ago with people with Aura showing the average time to heal from wounds. People got hurt, had a check up every day until they healed."

She quickly slides into, what I think is, a teaching mood.

There's a difference between picking up a bunch of books and reading through them and having someone teach you. Even though I had asked John a couple of questions throughout the weeks, he was a combat instructor in the time he taught, not an academic teacher. And there's a clear difference between them, I notice.

His are short, simple. I could tell sometimes there were redundancies and repetitions here and there in what he explained. More how to do. Hers, on the other hand, are concise, following a single line of thought.

"As far as history books have registered, there were always Grimm walking the land," She starts, and even though it's something I had read a few books about, is still interesting. "Aura was the main way that allowed mankind to survive against them in the early days. So they did some studies and wrote papers on it."

The explanations - simply going by the way she speaks, really - are clearly built on years of interest on the matter and experience actually teaching.

"Dust, though, was the turning point of mankind," she continues, "at the start, in its raw form, it allowed Aura users to create what amounted to grand scale attacks, freeing more land and letting civilization grow. Eventually, other ways were created, weaving clothes and even fusing Dust into one own's body was used. Though each had their drawback. And then ammunitions were developed, allowing even someone without Aura to use Dust, albeit with less effect."

I sit up in my seat, leaning forward a bit. "I read about Dust, but I couldn't find too much material about how to use it other than safety instructions and the ammunition effects," I tell her. "Which is weird, because I saw stores selling Dust."

"Yes," she nods, "but it's sold for household use. The Huntsmen Dust is of a higher quality and has a greater effect. If you tried to use that in a stove your kitchen would probably go up in flames, or every electronic you have is going to fry," she lets out a short laugh. "Even though it's sometimes sold in the same store, if you want to buy raw Dust you need a permit."

She goes on through the history of Dust usage. One of the problems of weaving Dust into clothes, according to Leona, was producing the threads. At first, making the threads strong enough for the strain that a Huntsmen's clothes bear, "... the interaction between Aura and Dust at the start proved to be quite… unsafe when they tried reinforcing the threads like their normal clothing," she says.

"And then there's the manufacturing method of the weaving itself. The name of whoever did it first was lost, but it was discovered that patterns bring out a better output, even when working with the same material, and it takes a lot of time to produce even one piece. Fusion, on the other hand, had a higher output than even the best weaving. But, it had a high level of risk due to implanting Dust directly into one's body. With the advancement of technology and creation of ammunition, Dust weaving and fusion fell out of use because of the production rates of firearms and bullets."

I pause for a moment. "I thought you were a Huntress," I say in a brief interval she takes. "I mean," I continue when I see her looking at me the through the rear view mirror. "It's… just more theoretical than I thought."

"Well," she drags out the word a little, "I am _also_ a teacher at Sanctum," I see something that could resemble a smile, if you squinted, "and sometimes Huntsmen that retire look for an academic degree, not that it's necessary, depending on the person their experience alone is enough for them to be hired as a teacher in one of the combat academies."

She talks about her life as a Huntress, about training and something about the missions she took with her team but I find that I can't focus properly, now.

I'm restless. I bounce my leg and look out of the window, we move past figures and buildings, and I can't help this feeling stirring in my stomach.

 _That spear. And he made fire out of nothing. Could I do something like that?_

That stir intensifies, and I feel something almost there. Circles, triangles, squares. Disconnected figures. I see parts, and I know, I feel, that they're part of a greater whole. But I can't figure out what.

 _I need to run._

"And we're here." The car barely stops, and my hand already pulled the door handle halfway.

"Thank you for driving us," John says. He places on hand on top of her one that rests on the stick.

"It was nothing, father," she tells him. As he opens the door, her face lights up. "Wait, I almost forgot," we're both halfway out of the car already, but I'm the only one to get out. "I was thinking about dinner next week." I hear her saying. I move up and down on the balls of my feet. "Tuesday night, so that Vestus can join in too."

I stop at one rise. _The name sounds familiar_. Where did I hear it?

"No problem," he answers. "Around seven?"

We don't talk until we're inside. What sticks to my brain for some reason is the way she looked at John as we left. The smile and the soft eyes. The way he places one hand on top of hers, reassuringly, giving it a squeeze. I work my jaw, this weird lump in my throat.

"We should talk now," I hold back a sigh, almost shaking that image off my mind.

"When I was younger," he starts, a chair rattling against the floor as he pulls it, "long before I had either Leona or Rowan, I saw a girl doing something like what you told me," I walk around the table, sitting opposite him. "It wasn't Dust, it wasn't even a Semblance. It was something... different. She was being attacked by people in the middle of nowhere, a lot of them. I saw as whoever was with her died, protecting her, even as I tried to get closer. To help." He pauses, furrowing his brow. "And that's when it started. She... started flying. Summoned a storm, and it was more focused than a Dust attack. Stronger. Lightning stroke down each of the twenty people that attacked her so... _easily._ "

He leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair.

"After I told her I was a Huntsman, she asked me to take her to Beacon," he says. "I think that had been happening for a while because we were attacked twice while on the way. When we got to Beacon the Headmaster himself came to see her, he asked me a few questions and then..." he trails off.

 _So, magic,_ and the term was still weird, being able to get shot in the head and not get hurt couldn't be described as anything but, _could be real. And people got attacked for using it._


	13. Chapter 13

"This place changed a little from when I used to come here." It's a nice looking building. Corner store, one floor. Large windows that let in so much natural light that the indoor lighting was turned off. I see rows of square tables, small enough for two people, line the walls, while bigger ones stay in the middle of the room. "But it's been some time."

"How was it before?" The faint sound of music bleeds out from the building. Acoustic guitar and a single voice. Female. The sound is too muffled to tell, but I think she sounds good.

"This wall here was further back, so this part was open," he says. "And they didn't have a musician before," he says as we enter.

The food aromas hit me as soon as we cross the threshold. The mixture of savory, meaty smells, with the richer aromas as we move into the restaurant, stirs my appetite, making me salivate.

"A lot of their clientele was the students that came to the city because the airships used to land around here. I used to come here when I was still in Heaven," _Which means… sixty years?_ I look around, the building is better preserved than I would've expected from that. There's not even the fine cracks in the paint, just the smooth white.

The tiled floors are waxed and shiny, no signs of scratch even near either the tables or the chairs. _Sixty years?_

I listen to one of his stories, it's the first time he met his wife, she was a cook in an inn he stayed while on a mission. Though it was a few years before they would actually start dating.

I look around, scanning the place and I realize something. It's interesting how there's basically no difference between a civilian and a Huntsman, there's no telling that gives away which of the people here are a Huntsman, some of the people here wear eccentric clothing sure, but that could be simply their, questionable, choices.

For Huntsmen and Huntresses it made sense that they would wear more distinct clothing since they're supposed to what amounts to being superheroes if I understand it correctly, - they fight evil incarnate, after all - _their mere presence being enough to calm the hearts of the populace, and thus reducing the numbers of enemies they might need to fight. Symbols of peace that-_

"What's on your mind?" I snap out of it and look at him.

"I'm fine, just… thinking."

"You should use this week to rest," he says. "Even if your body feels fine, the mindless repetition and stress are getting to you."

A rebuttal tries to find its way out but fails. I nod. "I'll… try," I had noticed that had been happening. I've been getting distracted way too easily, either falling into introspectiveness or trying to find out what patches of memory was gone.

The food arrives, and I understand why we took a four seat table instead of two.

While John picked from the normal menu and received a considerably hearty plate. One waiter had to carry my plate by himself while another one brought John's, the long plate takes more than half of my part of the table and I feel my eyes widening as the waiter sets it down in front of me even as my stomach stirs. _This is almost as wide as my shoulders._

"I... might have underestimated how much food came in this," I say when I pick up the fork and knife.

He looks at me and I see the small twitch of lips. "Just, start eating. You'll see."

I stab some of the steamed vegetables and start eating.

While John eats in a deliberate pace, I dig into my meal quickly. It's easily enough food for two people, and when I'm halfway through it I hear it.

There's one thing my father told me once. How I should listen to more music from that actual year, even as The Beatles played. Because there's this… - _what's the word? Nostalgia? Remembrance?_ \- feeling as you hear an old song.

My breath hitches as I listen to the first notes, a simple introduction, slow. I swallow the mixture of buttery mash and savory meat and feel a brief grasp on my heart. I turn to the stage, looking at the woman playing the guitar as I expect the drums to start, even though I know it won't, she's the only one up there.

 _"_ _There are places I remember,"_

I had found a few songs that were familiar. Little things that gave me some hope that I wasn't alone, but with a little more digging turned out to be just that. Because it was one song among dozens, if not hundreds, that weren't. _Just a coincidence,_ I force myself to think. Just like the buildings, and cars.

"How's the food?" He asks.

"Good." The answer is immediate and short, and also true. I point up, a smile creeping onto my face as if the music could be seen, floating around. "Dad was a Beatles fan," I continue, "is a Beatles fan." _Is, not was._

I watch as his expression softens. "I never heard this song before."

I look down at the half finished meal, and while I feel I could still eat, it wouldn't be the same as before. "Yeah," I start, a memory making its way up to the surface. "I don't know if you noticed it, but I'm not that big on talking," the laugh I let out is the 'blowing air out the nose' kind. "We used to read together, though, in the living room. He'd put the Beatles to play from time to time, going through the whole discography."

The little passage of the harpsichord starts, arranged for the guitar. I follow the rhythm, drumming the solo on the table with my fingers. "My father was the one that suggested me Dark Tower," I continue, lowering my voice. "Not sure why, though. I was… eleven, and it is quite a heavy book."

I eat the rest of the meal in a slower pace. I always was a big eater, even though I didn't actually gain much weight, but I'm still surprised that I'm able to do this.

When we get back to the house, I pick up a book, something about the Great War. General Straub of Vale, during one of the engagements with the enemy, found himself and his battalion against three incoming battalions of the enemy. Outnumbered, he orders his soldiers to leave their cannons behind, the bread and butter of the army at the time. General Straub, thus, advanced faster and taking advantage of the terrain, reached each enemy battalion separately, before they could reach him together.

I put the book down, spine resting against my thigh, a thumb marking the page. Luci that was laying by my feet, gets up and looked at me.

The difference in military force and location were the points that defined who won a war. But General Straub added a third variable, unit position in time. _Which is a rather obvious thing, isn't it?_

"Didn't you find it weird?" John was on the sofa, watching a movie. "The way their tactics worked?"

"Hmm?" He looks at me and then the book I'm reading. "The closest they ever have gotten to war was when the other Kingdoms explored Vacuo for its Dust. And even then Vacuo was complacent and vastly outnumbered. Since nothing on the scale of the Great War happened before, tactics were considerably basic. It evolved and adapted after that."

The first impressions he gave as a teacher are gone. I had asked about Dust and Aura, explanations that were simple. But I forgot, for far too long, who he was before here.

 _Tactics were a great part of a gunslinger arsenal, weren't they?_

"After the Great War," he continues, "The Academies were established, and Huntsmen and Huntresses started being officially trained, not necessarily being tied down to the Kingdom they graduate from. Though there's Atlas, that's another story."

A hum, and I go back to reading.

Luci gets up eventually and starts pacing around the room, and I look to the clock on the wall. "I should take her for a walk."

I don't change from the jeans and shirt I went to lunch with. _Different goals today, boys_. Even though I take the same route I usually run through, I notice some new things. How the setting sun paints the streets in an orange light. How the trees, planted a few meters away from each other, started blossoming, flower petals scattering across the street, a simple breeze blowing just hard enough that the mixture of the flowers' sweet scent hit me. How a couple blocks ahead and the smell of freshly baked bread, that sweet, alluring smell stirs my appetite. How people stare at us when we walk past. _Was it always like this?_

A couple more and I reach the park in its bustling mood. _More of the same._ People going for a jog around the perimeter while some spar in the little fenced off areas they have here. _Just... more of the same._

The sigh I let out turns into a grunt, I sit down, intact arm wrapping around Luci's neck.

 _Breathe in._

Breathe out.

I feel Luci's fur brushing against my arm as she slides from under it. She lowers herself to the ground, as if ready to pounce, though I see the tail wagging happily. I tilt my head, confused as she hops from side to side with only her front legs. I stretch out a hand to pet her head, but she dodges, hopping to the side.

I hear gasps and some murmurs as the humongous thing of a dog leaps forward, taking my wrist into her mouth.

It's not a tight hold, it doesn't even hurt. She has an odd grin-like expression when I look at her. I watch as she blinks once. Twice. My lips tight into a smile. _What?_

She shakes her head in a figure eight, and even while laughing I know to let my shoulder loose. It goes on for a few moments, and everything is forgotten in that time. I realize how I've been brooding. This… heavy feeling, clouding my mind and dulling my senses that I hadn't even noticed, just bleeds away.

Even while shaking her head Luci takes a few steps back, dragging me forward. I don't fight back, a slow descent until I'm laying down on the grass.

"Hey," the laugh devolves into a simple face splitting smile as I roll on the ground to face whoever had talked.

I use the moment it takes me to sit up to remember her name. "Arslan," I feel the blood rushing to my head, and my voice going up a pitch or two. "Hey."

"What happened?" She gestures to my arm.

"Yeah," I look over the cast, "sparring accident."

"Oh," she winces in sympathy, "I didn't take you for a fighter, though."

"Started last month," I say. "Calling me a fighter is stretching the truth a little, though." I brush off a few blades of grass that got stuck on my shirt. She's wearing leggings and a tank top, that just _…_ _ngh. Focus._ "Running?"

"Hmm?" She pauses for a moment. One word questions without the proper explanation aren't that clear, apparently. Who knew? "Sparring, actually." An almost eager smile starts to peek through. "Wanna watch? You might figure out something, even if you don't have Aura."

"Sure. But I have Aura," I say as I get up, "like I said, been training for a month." I add when she looks at me, perplexed. "Will it be okay to whoever you're sparring for me to watch?" She's quite a bit shorter than me, I notice, which makes it just that more impressive that she sent someone flying with a punch.

"He won't mind I think," she says, "we were classmates."

"Sanctum? I know someone that goes there." I should learn more about the combat schools. _I just know the one._

"No, actually." Her voice wavers, just a little. "I started working with a friend of my mom's."

"Hmmm." _She's… fifteen, maybe sixteen? And I…_

"What?" Her tone is a bit more high strung now.

"It's just that… I was fortunate enough to not have to work. Just study." I answer, speaking more softly. My brow furrows. "Which… kind of backfired since it all kind of... broke. But it might be different with combat schools, I don't know. Other people just have to take a test whenever they want to get a proper education."

I watch as her brow furrows, and then her eyes widening when she realizes what I mean. "I'm sorry, I didn't…"

"It's fine. I'm fine." I say. And I start to feel bad. "Had to get my Aura unlocked, but I'm fine." What she thought wasn't the truth, I would be more than surprised if it was, but it wasn't exactly much better than what had actually happened.

"So, what do you use?" The question is more to break that awkward silence that had started. "I assume you want to be a Huntress?"

"Mostly martial arts, there's a gym near my house. But I use a rope dart."

I hum and nod. "I tried this mace-like thing. It was more like a scepter. But I used it as a distraction in the end, throwing it and trying to punch." I shake the cast and make a face.

We're already in the fenced off area, she looks around and then at the watch on her wrist. It's a cheap looking thing, digital, not analog. Small.

"I guess I'm a bit early," she says and looks at me, eyebrows raising. "Did you learn how to feel your Aura? I heard that if you got it unlocked it can be a bit difficult to do it."

"I'm learning how to use it, actually. For now, it's on or off though, need to learn how to control it."

I watch as her shoulders sag while she tilts her head. "Really?"

I shrug. "Good teacher. I think. Though he's more the 'here's just step one' kind of teacher."

She opens her mouth to say something but seems to give up as it closes. "How was it? When you used Aura, did you just use Aura on one part of the body or did you use it on your whole body?"

I'm caught off guard. _There are more ways to do that?_ "Limbs. Legs and then one arm."

She tilts her head from side to side, thinking. "I could show you the way I was taught if you'd like, it uses Aura on the whole body," I nod. "Stand here," she points to the space in front of her, "and close your eyes."

It's the noises draw my attention then. Voices of people, the faint sound of hitting protective gear, the creak of a gate as it opened. "Calm down a little," I could almost hear the smile in her voice. She slaps both of my shoulders and how solid the hit felt told me that I was tensing up, "and focus. Now," she continues, "inflame your Aura on your arm," she probably notices the little twitch of my brow. "Do the same thing when you were using your Aura."

It takes me a while to do it. I feel mana - I settled on that name for now - branching out from my heart, sneaking in and mixing with my Aura, like it's pulling it along. It steals my focus, and I try to push it back.

"Imagine your Aura as a liquid, and try to move it while still keeping your Aura on the other places. Going up your arm and to your shoulder, then down to your leg, like a flow. And then the other side. You finish it on the top of your skull," she says. "Picture the flow slowing down, until your whole body is covered by it."

I start doing it, and… it's Aura, but it's also different than the other times. It's similar… but different. Compared to before it felt whole. My body itself felt covered by a thin, even layer that slowly formed as Aura passed from limb to limb. That feeling of brimming with energy, though not as strong as the spar with John, still felt wonderful.

When it passes through my broken arm I could almost feel the cracked bone, being pulled together by the strengthened muscle, Aura healing it even if at a snail's pace.

I'm amazed by what Aura can do.

Before lunch, John had shown me some footage of old matches of what seemed like random people. "From Vytal Tournament," he said. "Try to learn something from it. Worst case, it's still pretty entertaining."

Some moved with bursts of speed that I identified as Aura use, some attack with enough power to shatter a stage that changed from fight to fight, from grasslands and forests to deserts and somehow snowfields. Some would even block those earth-shattering attacks, though the ground would still suffer. Colored beams of light would rarely fly from someone, and John would say that it wasn't a Semblance when I asked.

I feel a grin stretching my face when I realize what it reminded me of. Even her explanation seemed familiar. _Maybe I could I change my Aura into something else?_ My focus slips so that the mana slips away, mixing in and it feels as if it binds my Aura together.

"What's the matter?"

"I think I got it," I say, "it feels like… some kind of veil. Thin."

I don't hear anything besides the background noise of voices and the occasional bird, there's this moment that I think I was left standing up on the corner of a combat area with my eyes closed.

She's just staring at me, slack-jawed. "What?" Her face shifts into a smile.

"It's just… it took me a couple of days to do that," she says. "And I was told I was fast."

I shrug. "I dunno."

Her friend arrives after that. I sit down, leaning my back on the fence when she walks up to him. It's the same guy I saw the other day, his hair is almost as long as mine, which reminds me that I need to get it cut. He carries his staff in a cloth bag, a strap slung over his shoulder.

"New friend?" I listen to them while continuing with the exercise.

"Lucca escaped the other day and Gabriel found it."

"Again? Didn't he do that last month?"

"It was my brother's this time, he tried to change his food, and..." she trails off.

"Hmm," he pauses for a moment. "Should we begin?"

There's a lull in the conversation, and I'm pretty sure that they're looking at me even without my eyes open.

"Yeah," she says. "If that's okay with you?"

There's no response, though I open my eyes when I hear the rustle of cloth as he pulls out his weapon.

They start simple. A few diagonal swings that she either parries or dodges. She moves in circular motions, her arms and hands for deflecting, and stepping, circling around and twisting her waist when she dodges.

He once more swings and she pushes it aside. His leg moves forward, his whole body pivoting and he swings the back of his weapon at her. Her step back is followed by a thrust by him that she leans to dodge.

 _She lowers her hips, steps in and then..._ Then, they start to move too fast, not that I couldn't see, I just couldn't quite understand the motions. Quick combinations, alternating highs and lows. Thrusts that turn into compact swings. Punches and palm strikes, that with half a step in, turn into elbow strikes.

I start the exercise again, this time with my eyes open, watching them trade blows, still marveling at the feeling of Aura.


	14. Chapter 14

_Sheets of paper cover part of the wall, circles, and squares drawn over and over with varying sizes and details._

 _One of the sheets is pinned to the corkboard by a single tack, separated from the others. Two, perfectly drawn, concentric circles and two squares tilted, the smaller one's vertices touch the larger one's edge right in the middle, while this one touches the outer circle._

 _There's beauty to its simple design. Thin, even lines, drawn by hand and with no signs of erasing or fixing show the practice put into it. The ones that line the walls and the table are imperfect when compared to it, lines too thick, the ghost lines of erased mistakes marking every paper. The circles are off, sections of it deviating from a perfect circle. Some squares are slanted or unproportionate, some have one line tilted, breaking the perfection._

 _I lean back from the latest try, my back popping when I push it against the chair. I stare at the sheet of paper in front of me, content with the results. I flex my fingers and roll my wrist, some relief washing over the overworked parts._

 _I get up, my knees popping at the movement, and walk up to the other table in the room, placing the sheet on the table and sliding it forward._

 _"This looks good," he says, and I feel my lips stretching into a smile. "And you do understand why I had you do this, right?"_

 _I nod, the movement so quick that my hair brushes against my nose. "It produces a better result."_

 _"What about choosing a material?"_

 _"Wood. Metals have to be processed the right way to be useful."_

 _He looks at me, one eyebrow raised, and sighs._

 _"Good enough, I guess," he says. "Let's go get some materials then."_

 _The outside is nice, it was a cloudy day, the thin and wispy kind that simply filtered the sunlight instead of outright blocking it. A constant breeze cools my skin, bringing with it smells of the wood. A musty smell, humid and thick._

 _"Everything that lives absorbs aether, little by little," we reach the forest and when we enter it the smells intensify. It feels a little warmer under the treetops, the air so saturated that it became a little harder to breathe. Sweat started to pool on my brow. "Can you tell which one is better to use?"_

 _"The older ones, right? Like that," I point to one, trunk so thick that the both of us couldn't wrap around it. "Compared to that one," I could probably wrap my arms around that alone by myself. He hadn't taught me about that yet, taking his time with each step before advancing to the next one._

 _"You're... not wrong," he starts. "Normally that's how. But what about that one," he indicates the same tree I had just pointed, "and this?" The one he indicates now is a different tree, though it looks the same as the first one. "Or that?" This one is a different type of tree altogether. Lighter bark, almost a light gray, compared to the other's dark browns._

 _I open my mouth to answer, though the answer doesn't come. You would need books about every other tree here to know.  
_  
You would need knowledge about the tree's growth for the third one, but the first two?  
 _  
He seems amused by the confusion on my face, a slight smile appearing on his._

 _"You put aether into it," he places a hand on a random tree, "slowly. You feel a…" he hums, calling me closer with his free hand, placing it on my chest when I get closer._

That weird feeling again.

 _Two hearts beating out of compass. One fast and erratic, beating strong, the other a steady pace, barely felt. I feel warm despite the breeze that cools my sweat. I feel cool, despite the heavy layer of clothing I feel pushing against my shoulders and brushing against my skin.  
_  
This is weird.  
 _  
I feel the warmth on my -not my- chest, one line going from a heart and quickly branching into dozens if not hundreds of threads. I feel the strands pooling together onto a palm and not stopping there. It pushes through, going somewhere different and I feel it probing around, gathering into a ball._

 _It continues for a while, warm aether -_ mana- _seeps into the tree, flowing from a heart to the bark. The gathering grows as some kind of pressure builds up, until it doesn't accept aether_ \- mana- _anymore._

 _"_ _This one is not bad," the connection is cut off as he takes his hand off my chest. "Also, you're way too warm." One hand disappears inside the cloak, grabbing something._

 _"Watch out." He holds his fist out, one finger pointing to a tree branch. In the blink of an eye a weird shimmer, long and thin, appears on the tip of his finger and suddenly disappears when he swings his arm. The next thing I hear is the wood cracking, and the branch falls, a clean, smooth cut where the tree connected to it._

 _He points to it another time. The same shimmer and splinters fly when the branch is cut once again, leaving a thick piece of the branch, the size of my forearm._

 _"Pick it up and let's go," he says. His eyebrows shift up and he smiles. "Long day ahead."_

 _I pick it up, throwing it up on my shoulder. "How does that work? That whole…" I wave my free hand around as if that was an explanation. "Senses thing?"_

 _He looks at me over his shoulder, grinning. "My teacher created it," he seems proud. "People didn't have the right… feel for aether" mana "so he created something to help."_

 _"What happened to him?"_

 _"Everyone…" he trails off, "it's complicated."_

 _We don't talk until we come back to the cottage. We enter a different room, an odd mixture of a library and a workshop. Shelves line half of the room's walls, filled with books, the other half is bare, a single workbench, and a cabinet. He opens it, the door blocking from view what's inside, and picks up a long wooden case from the inside of it. It's varnished, the latch giving in with a click as he opens it._

 _The tools displayed are neatly arranged, four chisels of different sizes reside inside the grooves inside the box. Two hammers, one big and a small one, rest on the same kind of indentation._ It reminds me of my dad's toolbox.  
 _  
He picks up the smallest chisel, its tip thinner than a finger, and the small ball peen hammer. A flick of the wrist and the chisel spins around his index, the handle pointing at me._

 _"You have to carve it if you're using it."  
_  
My muscles tense as I roll out of bed. One leg lands solidly on the floor and I push myself up _-where am I?_ \- Ceiling and floor seem to switch places as I stumble into a twisted second step. I crash against the door, the sound of it barely registering, with one hand pressed on my mouth and I fumble with the handle before opening it. I take the familiar - _where?_ \- route to the bathroom, rushing.

Heaves and splashes of water fill the bathroom. I feel soft fur, lightly pressing against my back, _-scared, startled_ \- and without even looking I push Luci away.

I spit out the thick of the acidic taste and collapse on the floor, exhausted, head resting on a folded arm on top of the toilet.

 _Where am I?_ What is happening?

It's as if I see the bathroom through two sets of eyes. The white tiled bathroom is familiar - _strange- as I shift my head a little, the dog_ -Luci- seems too big as it gets close again, I push myself against the wall.

John - _who is he?_ \- stops at the threshold of the door. He looks confused, even if a tinge of fear shows on his face.

 _My voice catches in my throat, the room suddenly appearing too small._ I feel my heart pounding in my chest. _It's hard to breathe._ The cold tiles feel even colder on my skin because of the t-shirt that clings to my skin.

"Are you okay?" _I hear the man_ -John- _say_. _He reminds me of Abraham_. The image of the cloaked man flashes on my - _my_ \- mind. What is wrong with me?

John approaches step by step, taking his time with each movement, crossing over Luci's body. He kneels down in front of me. "I want you to breathe." _He's trying to act calm, but there's still some fear in him._ "Slowly."

 _I close my eyes,_ I regain some control. _My heartbeat slows down._ My breathing steadies.

 _Good._ Good

This was bad. The thoughts are mine now. Simply me. "I remembered more," I say through gritted teeth. "But it was different today, more… I was that person. The way he, I, thought -" I push my hands against my face, groaning into them. I felt as if something had my head in a tight grip as my thoughts split again, my stomach churning as they do. _Focus._  
Focus.

I breathe in.

And out.

"It was different," I continue, my eyes still closed, each breath I take done through my mouth. "The way I thought before when I learned these things, it was similar to now, but…" I try to find words to describe it but fail to. "And the things I remember... " It's that feeling of disorientation right after waking up, amplified hundredfold, past the level of confusion of the incomplete information I felt the other times.

Some of it is still scrambled, and even though I can't quite tell how to do it I know I can. _Making fire or water out of a carving. Molding the earth with a single tool._

 _And the combinations..._

Air manipulated with the fierce energy of Fire, set up one way would create Lightning, and another would simply be warm air. Adding Water to this in the right place would transform into steam that could then be compressed within an Air bubble, the release of the built-up pressure creating a shockwave.

Though that same result could be achieved with Air mixed with Earth, I recall. _Somehow the mixture of the two can create a shockwave by utilizing the formative energies of the Earth._ Though too much of it would create miniature sandstorms, and too little would be just a strong wind.

Suddenly the geometrical shapes I saw before made sense. Equilateral triangles, depending on how you place them could be either Fire or Water. _It's not how you place them, but how you guide your mana through it. From the base and splitting results into Fire, while starting from a vertex turns it into Water._ Drawing a line parallel to its base separating the triangle in two, transformed the symbol into either Air if you used Fire, or Earth for Water.

"What did you remember?" John's words bring me back from an exploration of the newfound knowledge I had for God knows how long.

"The name of the man that taught me magic. Abraham." I look up, opening my eyes, glad that that weird split didn't happen again. "I remembered how to use it again. There's a process to it, longer than I thought. Four? No, five." I say as I remember the squares within the circle. "Five basic things that I can do. But I can combine them though." I run a hand through my hair, noticing how some of it is stuck to my forehead, wet, as I remember more.

A circle that contains the reaction is the base for most, if not all, magic. Simple v's that connect circles for combining two or more symbols, directing the energy for a better control, or simply overlapping two symbols for a basic combination.

"I just need some time," I get up, slowly sliding up the wall. "To put things together."

It's still dark out, I notice as soon as I get to the living room after changing out from the sweat-soaked clothes, though the sun was starting to come up, painting the sky with a weird shade of blue.

Luci sits down by my leg, resting her head on top of my knee. I place my hand on top of her head, absentmindedly scratching her ears.

 _I could've remembered some healing magic,_ I look at the arm still in a cast, _that would've been nice._

Magic.

There's so much to it. The carved symbols that I barely remember elements of evolves into what I saw last time, the odd shimmer in the air that I now know carried the symbols.

It's more than that. There was a spoken part of that language because it used to be a language though not known who spoke it, oddly enough I remember reading about that. The spoken part carried a greater weight to it, more power and a better versatility though at a cost. A small slip of the tongue while speaking would cause a backfire, with varying effects. _Lost in time. It doesn't exist anymore._

"Are you feeling alright for dinner?" John asks me, a little after lunch. Maybe a long time after lunch. The day had gone by fast, and most of the movement I did was shifting around the sofa with the exception of grabbing something to eat. At some point I had slid down the sofa, the dog's head resting on my lap.

It takes me a while to remember. _Dinner, right._ "I want to go, it might -" I pause, sigh, clearing some of my thoughts. "It'll be nice."

He smiles, a restrained act, and nods, leaving the room.

When he comes back it's maybe an hour later, the TV had been on since morning though I only paid attention to it for the last episode of some random show about a… werewolf, or some kind of experiment. I'm not sure. Even though I was still sitting on the ground I had eased my back into the sofa.

A shirt dangles in front of me, a nice looking button-up that blocks the TV, right at the climax of the episode, where the guy transforms, _off-screen of course_ , all I hear is a roar, and people screaming, terrified. "Dress up, we'll be leaving soon."

I take the shirt and look up at him, probably making some kind of face because he continues. "You only have white t-shirts. That you sweated through most of them one day or another."

The preparation for going out even the dinner itself is a nice ordeal. A normal, simple routine consisting of shower and then dressing myself minutes before leaving that brings me back to when I was a kid, with an addition of shaving after a few years.

Dinner though, dinner was nice and calm.

 _Productive._


	15. Chapter 15

Weeks had passed since the first dinner with a lot more of those happening. It became an almost weekly thing, varying between Euros or Leona's house, rarely -very rarely- going to John's, though the first was one of the few times that all of us had joined.

Euros' husband worked in a restaurant in the higher parts of Mistral, a management position of some kind. Quite interested in music, he asked me to play two more songs after the first that I got dragged into, I didn't exactly offer, playing.

All it took was Euros mentioning, an offhand thing, how she thought about introducing me to John. The song - and guitar playing - lead to an Eton asking me to play.

I was focused enough this time to choose something that didn't require that much wrist movement, the fact that it didn't have lyrics helped, and so that it at least sounded impressive, even if it wasn't that complicated technically. Showing off was good for the soul from time to time. Unless you suck more than you think.

I didn't, taking that Vestus asked me to play another song after I was done. I hadn't even noticed how their talk had waned and they were looking at the younger group that ended up circling me.

The second is another melody, a Beatles song that I kept the beat by tapping a foot, though I just hum along to instead of singing. He asked again, and I didn't miss the little arm squeeze Euros gives him.

This one I pause for a moment, the first two were sounded nice and calming. But not quite the tempo I felt at the moment. My heart beat fast, I could feel it drumming in my chest, less nervousness and more excitement. I smiled as a song came to mind, then asked for a pick that Eton rummaged through a bag to find.

"Don't know how it'll sound with the cast, but here it goes." Four deep notes in quick succession, and with that alone, you could tell it was a different kind of song. "You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain," the lyrics helped too.

I spent a good part of the rest of the evening teaching Eton how to play. Apparently, he had a newfound interest in music. I didn't remember listening to a beginner learning how to play ever since I did, and that was a few years ago. I admit there's something a little adorable about the lack of coordination or how the smallest progress made his eyes glisten.

It was an interesting night.

Thanks to Pyrrha's dad I had a job. Apparently, I sounded good enough to play in a restaurant. Not his, though, he already had people for that. He told me about another restaurant that needed a musician.

It wasn't a job offer, but more an opportunity to work. I had to do some research about songs, more in-depth this time, to look for any that songs that I knew and that existed here.

My 'original songs', as the woman that oversaw the process put it, were good. It was probably that 'good' that put me ahead of the others, even if they were better than I was.

It took a lot of my time though. Lunch and dinner on the weekdays in three hours shifts, so while I could still do exercises I couldn't read and research as much, even if my weekends were free. In the afternoon I got used to running back to John's, dropping off the day's earnings and then going off for a run.

I weave between the trees of the wooded part of the park.

It was harder, but I did still meet with Arslan from time to time. The way she used Aura was different than John's. It was a lower and constant reinforcement compared to higher bursts, at least for now.

Mana helped with the process, weaving itself with Aura. I had some progress with carving the tools like the ones I remembered, but something was still off. It had taken me a few weeks of experimentation trying to create a fire 'rune'. I found the materials lacking, the wood couldn't retain as much mana as I hoped Varying things like the type of wood and size of the symbol still left me with just a bowling ball-sized lighter after many thrashed attempts.

I push off against the ground, easily covering double the distance I would have a few weeks ago, spinning on the balls of my feet as I stop in front of a tree and change directions.

Luci keeps up with me through all of it. Running like this kept me doing two things, the routine exercise and Aura training. I could use Aura to increase my speed without having the risk of running into someone, though the trees still suffered for it from time to time when a turn didn't go as well as I thought. Sore shoulders and hip told me that that happened more than I realized.

I slow down, the switch between running with Aura to a deliberate jog far too jarring even after days doing the same thing. I find myself too alert, aware of every branch that moved as a breeze passed by or blurs of motion of people far away.

A few more steps and I hear someone speaking as if through gritted teeth. Then a sound that I grew used to since coming here. Dull and hollow. Followed by coughing, and then laughing.

I feel a chill going down my spine. Four different people, even before reaching there I could tell that much. As I approached the source of the sounds I smoothed out my breathing. My steps are slower now, barely making a sound.

A few more steps and I freeze.

I feel my blood boiling as I recognize the one on the ground, almost coughing his guts out. My skin feels too hot and I could almost hear my heart thumping on my chest as the laughs, and I could feel the malice behind those now, begins to fade more and more on the back of my mind. Closing my fists, I take one step forward, blowing air through clenched teeth with enough force that I saw spit flying.

"Hey," the sound that came out was far too different than I thought. Still tense, words barked out, but far calmer than a mere moment ago. In one step the world came into focus. "That's enough."

I could hear Luci growling beside me. Wide-eyed, all three of them seemed surprised to see someone here. The youngest of them was breathing loudly now, almost gasping for air. And so did Eton, almost choking as he tries breathing through the coughing.

I still feel my skin too warm, my heart pumping boiling blood through my veins, but I am not as mad either as I should have or was nearly a moment ago. But I know I should be. And that was enough.

I walk forward, placing a hand on top of Luci's head. The growling lowering but not stopping, I could still feel it, shaking her bones.

They look at each other, then the tallest of the group starts to talk. "L-look," his voice was shaky, strained. "We were just putting him in his place."

That phrase alone should've made me angrier, but I just exhaled through my nose, paying more attention to the way that he moved towards me, tense, putting himself between the other three and I. Leaning to the side, I tilt my head to check on Eton, the coughing had stopped, even if his breathing was even more ragged now.

I barely register the fist that came to me, a panicked haymaker, without skill or weight behind it. I raised an arm on reflex, weeks of sparring with both Arslan and Bolin had given me at least that much, Aura flaring almost instantaneously as I did.

I had an arm cocked back, fist already trailed on his ribs, when Luci pounces on him with a roar, taking his free arm and throwing him down with a whip of her head.

"Leave," I say, patting Luci so she would let go. The older kid scrambles to get up, trying to run before he stood, he slips, before getting a grip and pushing the frozen two back through the wooded area, leaving Eton behind.

Eyes wide, he stares at me, almost gasping for air. Warm fur touches my hand, and I notice how my fist was still clenched. I flex my hand, exhaling,

"What was that?" Eton looked better, his breathing more normal now. "It was like that day when we went to grandpa's house," he stops for a moment, eyes going wide, the ears on top of his head going ramrod straight. "Was that your semblance?"

"I don't know," I answer, shrugging. "What was this about?" I gestured to the area, and his ears went flat against his head as he looked down.

"Just… let's go," I wait for an answer, and when it doesn't come I shake my head, running a hand through my hair. "To your mom, or do you wanna go to John's?" I add when he looks confused.

Taking my hand and grunting as I pull him up, he picks the same way that I came from, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

The walk was done in silence, it's what I would've liked, so I couldn't think of a way to start that. Though I could see his ears twitching and moving on top of his head from time to time.

"How's work?" He asks, finally breaking the silence, voice low enough that he had to repeat it.

"It's nice," I answer after a moment. "I covered for a friend of mine back then, and it wasn't that different. Except I get paid better here." I add. What would even be the exchange rate of money between dimensions? "Did you know that that box near the stage was for tips?"

He nods. "So people liked your songs?" I notice how some people look at us, and I had to convince myself that they didn't think I had done that to him.

"They liked the songs. A lot." I smile, more from the ingenuity of when I had started. Everything seemed like a dream. The first day was amazing. The first week, even. "There were a few that praised the songs. They like the songs," I scratch my head, unsure. "Friday nights are nice, though. People tip a lot better" I add.

A few more steps and we are out of the park. "When did that start?" Direct approach. Even if being left alone was what I wanted when I was in the same situation as him, I also knew that talking helped.

He glances at me, looks down, ears flat against his head. "Last month. It's these things," he grabs his fox's ears, pulling on them, hard. "They called me an animal. It used to be just names, but..." I take a deep breath, sighing as it came out, even through gritted teeth. I saw how his knuckles turned white, shaking, as they went down to his side.

"If I had Aura they wouldn't do that," he continued, bitter. "They wouldn't be able to. At least nobody messes with Maya like that."

I breathe in, patting him on the shoulder, and it's like he snapped out of something. "I think they're" cute, adorable, "nice. I know some people back home would think the same." He looks up, eyebrows quirked in some way. "There's no Faunus there," I clarify. "At least not in flesh. There, they're fictional." We walk a little more and I could see his ears pointed up, focused on what I was saying. "Like, uh... comic books?" I hum at the comparison, amused at how well it fit. "Some people like them. A lot of them actually." Maybe more than they should.

It turned out that Sanctum was closer than I thought, less than an hour from the park at the pace we walked. A blocky, high, U-shaped building, walls painted white and the dark tiled roof. I wasn't sure what to expect from a combat school, but it was oddly underwhelming, which I point out to Eton.

"There's rooms for shooting and sparring in the two upper floors that every class shares," he explains. "The floors below are for normal classes." I take another look at the building, paying more attention to the windowless top floor and the wider windows on the one below, but there's one question that came to mind.

"Are there any other languages here?"

"Not really," he says, looking at me, eyebrows pushed together for a moment. "I forget that you're not from... here. Before the Great War people had already come together in that." There were some students trickling from inside the building in a group and I watch as Eton shifts, enough that I had to keep my back to the door to talk to him.

"You can go if you want to," he says.

I shake my head. "What's with that?" I say, pointing to the doors.

"Combat review for second years and up. What to work in during the break, things like that," he answers. "Maya should be getting out soon."

I notice how he shifts again, turning away from me in a way that hid a good part of the dirt on his clothes, before feeling a light poke on my shoulder.

"Hello," I turn to green eyes looking up at me, a small smile that devolves into a worried look when Pyrrha leans just enough to see Eton, and I see a couple of people looking at us. "What... happened to him?"

I glance over my shoulder at Eton, and he seems to almost shrink onto himself. Had this been any other circumstance it would've been amusing. Just a kid with a crush trying to hide his embarrassment.

"He's waiting for Maya," is the only answer that I can give. If he felt comfortable talking, he would. "Do you know when she's coming?"

She shakes her head. "Different classes, sorry." She looks at Eton and then at me again with a smile, more polite than the other one. "But she should be done soon." I look over her shoulder again and more people had gathered around.

"Someone's popular," I say, and when she turns her head cascading red catches my eyes.

"Oh, yes, they're... friends," her eyes trail down, oddly reserved, though they quickly light up. "My mother wants to know when it's better for us to go outside the walls."

It was something that John had told me about a few nights ago. A tradition of sorts, even short-lived as it was so far, of training by going outside of the walls and surviving for two days there. Jake had done that to both Leona and Rowan, and since she was planning on doing the same for Maya, he wanted me to join.

"I'm free on the weekends," I didn't know they would join though. I wondered how they explained that I would go with them. "So this one? Maybe the next?"

"I'll be sure to tell her," she nods and looks back at her friends. "I shouldn't keep them waiting. See you later." She smiles and waves goodbye, but I notice how it falters when she looks at Eton again.

Soon enough Maya comes out, and I just wave her a goodbye while Eton goes to her and I leave.

I realize something about my plans for the weekend while I head back. My life had changed a lot.


	16. Chapter 16 - Paragon

It all began with the bedtime stories.

Starting from the usual fairy tales - and those were still held close to her heart- soon they turn into the adventures from when her mother still took missions, just enough to build some kind of reverence for the profession and making her think she could, and would, be able to do the same, though redacted and censored to be fit for a child.

A simple promise to take her outside of the walls had shown her how far from reality her mother's stories were. Not because of the Grimm, even if no picture or video shown in classes could've prepared her for how utterly wrong they felt, or the out of season cold that cut through her clothes. She could push through the latter and the first was not as much of a threat, with both her mother and Uncle Cyprus with her. It was because at the first inkling of danger, if not only for her life then someone else's, her body had gone taut, betraying what she planned on doing.

It was almost time for them to go back, a single call and a Bullhead would have come to pick them up when something that could be only described as a wave hit her.

The thought it was just her imagination, a feeling that sent chills down her spine and made her stomach drop, is soon put away just by looking at her mother and uncle. One traded glance with each other, and they keep her in between them.  
They soon reach a clearing, finding a dog lying next to a body, bare torso hardly covered by a dark jacket. Her breathing hitches as she notices the blood still seeping through poorly made bandages, painting the snow around him with a deep red.  
It all happens fast. The dog gets up, deep growling soon turning into barking but then stopping. It was subtle, but she was sure and taking the way her mother stepped forward she had seen it too. The boy had moved.

Uncle Cyprus pats her arm, signaling her to keep watch.

"Call for transport," Pyrrha had never seen her mother talk like that, a desperate urgency. "he's alive but not for long, we need to get him out of here." She hears a rustle in the woods, far, but loud and numerous.

And it's there again.

It is a sudden flood of pure terror. She feels the warmth pooling in her chest as her heartbeat picks up. Pyrrha's head darts around waiting for Grimm, this time dozens of them instead of the couple they had met throughout the day, not noticing how tight her grip was on her weapon, nor how her chest was rising and falling.

"Pyrrha!" Her head snaps to her mother, suddenly aware of how wide her eyes are, aware of how desperately the air was clinging to her throat. "Hold his head still would you dear?"

The rest of the fight is a blur.

She remembers the dozens of pinpricks that seemed to crawl under her skin, growing stronger as Grimm had gotten closer, and how from the corner of her eye, she saw the way the dog rushed into the horde despite its fragile-looking body. How, each time the boy blinked, it took longer and longer for him to open his eyes again. She remembers that squeeze in her chest again and the way she had to focus on her breathing just to keep it even.

She remembers the relieved sigh that came to her lips as the Bullhead approached, a high whistle that drowned out the sound of the, already whittled, Grimm. How his lips turned purple, despite the paramedic's efforts, sunken cheeks now far too apparent under the fluorescent lights. The way Pyrrha looked at her mother, already thinking of what she could've done different, tightened his crude bandages or outright replacing them were the first that came to mind. Hoping that he would live, at the same time that a weight settled on her shoulders, pushing her head down even as the realization of what was going to happen started to dawn on her.

"Euros, don't!" Pyrrha's head shoots up as she hears Uncle Cyprus yelling over the Bullhead's turbine. But her mother stays by the boy's side, one hand cupping his face and the other on his chest, reciting something, almost under her breath. A uniform dark green light envelops her, and she stays there for a moment that seems too long before the boy's Aura glows a navy blue that flickers and seems to almost crack before becoming solid.

Her mother falls unconscious soon after that.

And a few weeks after that the dinners start again.

Just like when she added a javelin form to her Milo, she expected there would be an adjusting period for it, but it was more like when she had to get used to a new sword. She had started with a longsword just like her mother's, though it didn't fit quite right with her. All the things she knew were there, with small differences.

Maya was still reactionary. Smiling, nodding and responding when talked to. Eton was different, talking and openly laughing with the rest of them. Asking questions about the stories, or trying to chime in with what he thought.

Even with an arm in a cast that he had gotten from sparring with John, a surprise for most of the table, Gabriel had been able to play three, very different, songs. She did not expect, however, that he was learning how to fight, or that he would be willing to go outside of the walls, much less stay there overnight, according to what her mother told her.

If there was one thing Pyrrha couldn't help but find odd about Gabriel, even if she knew how conceited it sounded, was how he hadn't heard either her mother or Pyrrha herself. Or even about the Tournament.

The Mistral Tournament usually had people in their last two years before going to one of the Academies as champions, just like her mother had, with seniors about to graduate as the usual winners. When she had won her first tournament as a fourteen-year-old, there was some talk. How the favorites of that year had been met with unfavorable matchups and basically taken themselves out, leaving behind a first comer to win the tournament.

The second time she won, and that brought with it the promise of her mother taking her outside of the walls, almost a year later, she had shown it wasn't simply luck or fluke.

And it involved a lot more than just fighting, she found out. Competitors came from all around the continent in order to attract sponsors from the businesses in and out of Anima since the event was transmitted to the whole world. After all, a new, better weapon, Dust, or even ammo didn't pay for itself, even if some combat schools and even the Academies were Kingdom-funded and supplied some of it.

Some odd feeling had been stuck to the back of her mind ever since she went outside of the walls. She had talked with her mother about it, how every other encounter with Grimm barely shook her, she was scared, an odd goosebump throughout the day, but nothing she couldn't handle, and how Pyrrha had frozen in place when it counted more.

Her mother reassures her through all that. About how normal it was, how even she felt scared at the time, how she was too young to see 'someone in that situation' and that while you could only cope with that better, Grimm she could get used to.  
The drive was done mostly in silence even after picking up the others. The sun had barely risen over the horizon, and she hears the eventual yawn by her side.

"I did not sleep that much either," she whispers to Gabriel. There was something she felt she had to make up for. "Are you nervous?"

Half-open eyes turn in her direction, though they don't quite look at her. "Just tired from work, coffee should kick in soon," he says, overly pronouncing each syllable in a way that Pyrrha had to get used to, and she watches as he squints his eyes shut and clenches his jaw, drowning out another yawn. "Had to buy some things too."

"Like what?"

"Food and some rope," she notices how he tenses up a leg, trying to avoid pushing Maya against the door when they take a corner. "Ammunition, too."

"Did you hunt before?" Pyrrha asks, gesturing to the rifle on the back, long enough that it reached his shoulders, she saw him carrying before when he makes a face.

He chuckles. "Not really, John started teaching me right after I moved in."

Gabriel yawns again, and she fights back the will to do the same, thinking it's better to let him rest for a while. Maya hadn't even tried to stay awake, just resting her head on her palm as soon as she got in the car.

Pyrrha didn't miss the way he eyed the Bullhead while they waited for the pilot, arms crossed and tilting his head. "Afraid of flying?" Maya asks, leaning against the railing.

"What?" He looks between Maya and the Bullhead. "No, it just... it looks weirder up close than I thought."  
Mrs. Chambers talks to the pilot and they soon take off, the engines humming to life as the airship gains height.  
Fields filled with green pass by in a blur, instead of the white covered forests, giving way to wetlands, the sunlight shimmering on the water, even from that high up.

Pyrrha turns away from the window, looking at her family's friends. She watches as Gabriel double checks the pouches on his belt and the sheathed knife. Absentmindedly, she circles her thumb on the stock of her rifle that rested on her lap.  
Maya, on the other hand, kept her staff by her side, one hand stopping it from rolling around, wearing earbuds. Their families were close, the dinner-together-at-least-once-a-week kind of close, something that she's glad started again even if not with the same frequency as before, and as a result, they had grown close too. Maya used to be the speak your mind kind of child, the complete opposite of her both then and now, though eventually she grew quieter, choosing to do or speak well rather than much, and they had simply... drifted apart.

A beep ends the trip even as short as it was, dragging Pyrrha out of her thoughts. She checks the pouches on her belt, making sure both that and her bag are secure, catching from the corner of her eye that her mother does the same.  
"Why are we stopping?" Pyrrha turns to Gabriel as he looks around, confused. "We're not that high, but..." he drifts off, looking through a window.

"We can't exactly land since there might be Grimm, so we just..." Mrs. Chambers speaks as if confused by the question, mouthing an 'oh' as the realization hits her. "Father didn't tell you about this. Okay. Maya, take his rifle. Gabriel, just... make sure your things are secure." Pyrrha watches as Maya takes her earbuds off, stuffs them into a pocket and does what her mother said, hesitating whether to hand over a thin, black block to Gabriel.

"What?" His response is even more confused than before. The doors open, and she watches as her mother jumps off and Leona tells Gabriel to keep his eyes closed. With a final look back she sees him being hoisted up Leona's shoulder and she follows her mother down, shield in hand.

The way down is fast, wind billowing on her ears as she falls. The Aura focused on her arms and shield taking the brunt of the impact as she crashes through some trees, looking around for the others, she finds her mother easily, following a similar path of fallen trees.

The others land soon enough. Leaves and branches break Maya's fall, the closest ones warping and following her down, while shots ring through the forest, slowing Leona's descent. Pyrrha tries to shake off that prickling feeling she still has from the fall.

Gabriel stumbles when Leona puts him on the ground, misstepping once and then righting himself. "Okay," he looks around, taking his rifle and slinging it over a shoulder. "Okay," he looks up, breathing in deeply.

"So, what do we do now?" Leona asks, slinging her rifle over a shoulder and giving Gabriel an amused glance before looking at the girls.

Both Leona and her mother were there to observe and teach them. The time for that was limited since all of them had to go back by Monday, even if students were in the middle of the summer break, the working part of the group didn't have the same leeway. With that, the younger three had free reign on what to do, with varying levels of reprehension depending on what they decided on, doubling the survival simulation as a teamwork exercise.

"We should move," Pyrrha offers, looking at the other two for confirmation. "We might've attracted some Grimm."

They nod, and she doesn't miss the way Gabriel twists his lips.

"That way, I think?" He points north, after looking around. "If we walk that way we'll find a river." Maya pushes his wrist more to his right, and he looks at her, eyebrows shooting up a moment later. "So, that way. We'll get to the river in the middle of the afternoon."

Pyrrha smiles, mentally double checking the map of the area, and they start moving. It was warmer than she imagined it would be, the humid air trapped under the treetops thick with the scent of the cool, damp, earth mixed with the heavier sap and pine. Maya took the lead after a few too many times that Gabriel glanced back after looking up and orienting himself with the sun.

There wasn't a lot of talking as they walked, even while they had stopped to eat during the day. Still, Pyrrha found herself smiling, oddly elated by being there even if they hadn't run across any Grimm on the way. There were a lot of birds around them, by sound alone she could tell half a dozen of different kinds followed them the entire time, some of them even getting within arms reach of Gabriel while he ate.

He chuckled at the time, mumbling something about princesses under his breath, though Pyrrha doesn't catch it all.  
The sun paints the sky a deep orange by the time they get to the river. The grass was short, if non-existent on some places along the river making it a good spot for setting up camp, though Gabriel grimaces at the idea of staying near it, saying the river should be deep enough to hide Grimm.

As soon as they find a spot with decent space they assign work for each of them. Gabriel had left with Mrs. Chambers to get water, leaving the girls to find wood for a fire. The task of setting up camp is dull, though Pyrrha still keeps her guard up, checking her surroundings at each noise, just in case. Though Gabriel had rarely spoken throughout the day, more mumbling things from time to time than actual talk, Maya had kept quiet, and still did, even while they gathered wood.  
Pyrrha considered talking for a moment, trying to remember anything they talked about before. She has to go back almost three years for that, absentmindedly still picking up small sticks, reminiscing about books and shows that Maya had talked about a few times. Books were a dead end, Pyrrha had been busy enough with either training or studying to read, though she wasn't sure she would've liked the horror and thrillers that she remembered Maya talking about.

"How is your brother?" Pyrrha tries, giving up on that line of thought and remembering what she had seen on the school gate. "I... saw him with Gabriel last week."

There's a moment of silence and Pyrrha tenses, wondering if the problem had been more serious than she thought. She watches as Maya's tail, as dark as her hair and loosely shifting as she moves seems to tighten around her as she turns to Pyrrha. A familiar motion that doesn't help her relax.

"He had some problems with some people at school." The little anger that there is in her tone quickly bleeds out. "He still has the rest of the year to unlock his Aura, so he'll be fine."

"Who is he having trouble with?" People usually unlocked their Aura within a year of taking combat classes, much longer than that meant no talent in using Aura and far too vulnerable to be a Huntsman.

There's a pause in which Maya picks up another stick, long enough that she ponders into repeating the question.

"I didn't even know that this was happening," she says. "I was stuck in school and I think it was the first time it got that far. But..." she trails off, a humorless chuckle leaving her lips. "Apparently Gabriel scared a freshman hard enough that they apologized for it," she speaks a little louder this time, though almost biting out the last words. Pyrrha hears her mutter something about him not even having Aura yet.

"Can I help with anything?"

Maya shakes her head. "Even I can't beat him all the time without using Aura. He's good, he just..." she stops, breathing out loudly as the tail uncoils from around her. "He still has until the end of the year," she repeats. "He can do it."

As soon as they come back to the campsite she sees the oddly amused look on Mrs. Chambers face, her eyes then going to what Gabriel was carrying. She doesn't recognize it, the long shape and pink color makes her think of a fish, even though it's too thin. One exchanged look with Mrs. Chambers and a badly muffled and short laugh comes from her mother behind her.  
"At least we got here after he gutted the thing," her mother says. "Not really the kind of thing I want to see again."

And like that, their mothers slip into a reminiscing mood, telling a few stories about their times as Huntresses. Lighthearted stories, like one of their first missions after graduating where they went to a village where a monkey had awakened Aura and had started talking, sounding more like a parrot according to Mrs. Chambers, though her mother disagreed.

Maya with a delicate use of her Semblance had cleared all plants around the firepit. It was an eye-catching spectacle, vines and tree roots moved as if they had a mind of their own, and Gabriel had put whatever it was that he caught near the fire as soon as it was set up, passing the time by carving something on one of the branches he had picked up. It smelled nice, enough to wet Pyrrha's appetite, though not enough to try 'Mystery Meat number 1', as he had put it. He soon goes to sleep, wrapping himself in either a cloak or a blanket that he pulled from his bag and leaning against a nearby tree, and she soon follows, laying down on her sleeping bag and leaving her mother and Maya to keep watch.

Instead of the summer air mixed with the faint smoke, she feels and smells leather, thin and strangely cool to the touch, mixed with a familiar aroma that her drowsy mind doesn't immediately recognize when she wakes up at some point. Hearing the short and rhythmic scraping of wood and the quiet, deep humming of a song, she relaxes. That meant she still had a couple of hours to sleep until her turn to keep watch.

Slowly, she lets sleep start to overtake her again when a woman's voice speaks up.

"Should I put wood carving under the ever-growing list of things you know?" It takes her a few moments to recognize Mrs. Chambers' voice, though there's something in her tone she can't quite place.

"Just something I'm trying out," he absentmindedly responds. "The wood here is better than in the city. It's old, but not... old," the sounds of carving stops as he pauses. "Here it's fresh, but back there it's... old? Withered?" He tries to explain.  
A hum. "And you started working with Dust too?" There's a pause, and bleary eyes open, seeing the campsite illuminated by the fire and she catches Mrs. Chambers' pointing towards her. "I saw the blanket. Rather kind of you," she teases, and Pyrrha sees a small smile as the fox's ears twitch.

"She's wearing a corset and a skirt..." he starts quickly, his voice a little higher than the usual, but trails off. She feels a warmth coming to her cheeks at that.

He lays down the branch on his hand beside the others and his rifle, sticking the knife into the ground and brushes off his hands, the act deliberately slow as he seems to calm down. "I'm just trying to keep myself busy."

"I won't ask how you got Dust threads," she says, the tease and smile gone from her. "But... don't you think you might be spreading yourself too thin?"

Gabriel shuffles in place, pulling the knife off the ground and testing the sharpness of it. "I just need to keep myself busy," he says.

Mrs. Chambers sighs and gets up, taking the few steps to get to where Gabriel is sitting. His arms rest on crossed legs as he seems to stare into the fire.

She hesitates a little but finally places a hand on his head as she kneels down next to him. "Just... take your time."

A moment passes, and they stay like that, the crackling of the wood filling the campsite. Mrs. Chambers pulls her hand back but doesn't move to go back. Even from as far as she was she could tell, from the way Gabriel's head tilted and the focus on one point, that he was lost in thought and Pyrrha wonders if she could get back to sleep, or if it would be worth it.

"The first night after I got here I stared into a fire like this, " he starts, absent-mindedly. "It wasn't normal. Staring, and thinking, remembering, hard enough that I forgot to feed the fire," a mirthless chuckle. "If Luci wasn't there I'm not sure I would've made through the night," he lets out an 'oh' as he remembers something else, his tone still distracted. "When I saw Luci I thought about the dogs we have back home. When I saw the maps I remembered the time my dad tried to teach me how to read one." He stops, a moment that seems to drag on, and she feels the air catching in her throat.

"It wasn't even grief or loss, I think, but it didn't happen if I had something to focus on." He continues. "Some things still slipped through." It was the first time she had heard about what happened to him and probably the most she had heard him talk about anything.

"Do my parents think I'm alive? Or that I died? What if... what if I can't get back?" She feels a small urge to get up and move. Run somewhere, anywhere, but she stays there. "No one should have to bury their own son. Or think that he's dead." Pyrrha shuts her eyes as warm pressure starts to build up.

"That's—" Mrs. Chambers stops when a series of roars echo through the woods, close enough that Pyrrha feels the ground shaking as a herd approaches. "Everybody up!"

She's the first one up and the little fear and guilt that she feels are momentaneous as anticipation fills her mind when she arms herself.

On her head, she goes through the basics, trying to think of a way to deal with the incoming Grimm as her rifle points towards the incoming noise, shifting her sights ever so slightly. From the corner of her eye, she sees the small moment it takes for the others to get ready.

She goes through their situation on her mind. The roar meant Beowolf or Ursa with the possibility of more silent Grimm herding with them. Depending on how many there were, they could be handled with melee in order to save ammo and to keep from attracting attention.

Another roar and a series of creaks as the Grimm seem to impact against trees draws their attention to a different side of the campsite.

"We might get surrounded," Pyrrha hears her mother say over the increasing noise, her tone calm, but eyes still darting around, sword in hand. The first Grimm emerges from the woods and the fire uncovers its white claws and bone-like mask from the camouflage of the dark night while its pelt seems to simply absorb the light. The monster spreads its arms and opens its mouth, preparing a roar.

Pyrrha makes to move, shield held in front of her as the sword prepares to attack when an arrow pierces the Beowolf through its thick neck, lodging itself there. The sound of its cry becomes muffled as the arrow unfurls and expands, falling to the ground in a tangled mess of roots and branches when the Beowolf becomes undone.

"Move!" Maya's voice cuts through the noise of the approaching cries and falling trees. "To the river!"

It's a short way there, but even then it feels longer than earlier in the day when they were simply walking. She was further away than the others and in the first few unsure steps, all she sees is darkness ahead of her until a hand on her wrist urges her forward, increasing her speed. Maya guides her through the darkness as she puts her shield on her back and switches her sword from one hand to the other. Pyrrha hears a series of quick scuffles on the ground, one of them approaching more and more at each step she took.

They break through the edge of the woods to the riverside lit by the moonlight, she turns around the moment Maya lets go of her and Milo extends into its javelin form, piercing through the skull of an incoming Irvibane even as the shield slides back into its place. She glances back in time to see Gabriel dropping his bag on the ground and switch his hold on the rifle, grabbing it by its barrel and swinging at a leaping Irvibane, shattering its mask and turning it into smoke.

A Beowolf runs off the forest, claws already raised and aimed at her. Angling Akouo just right, the strike reverberates a short, sharp sound as it slides off and she slices off its head. Parrying with her shield and then slicing off overextended limbs from another Beowolf, as an Irvibane lunges at her but gets sidestepped before Pyrrha ends them both with a thrust or slash to their heads.

Turning her head one way, she sees Gabriel dealing with an Ursa from the corner of her eye, dodging its strike and slamming its knee with enough force that the Ursa falters. He raises the rifle over his head as she side steps another Irvibane, a loud, dull crack ringing through the riverside. Another glance and she sees Maya disposing of a Beowolf, staff already digging into the underside of its maw. The crocodile-like Grimm jumps at Maya and she braces herself as she blocks it with her weapon. Pyrrha sees the tip of the staff as the impaled Beowolf disappears, under the moonlight she registers an amalgam of twisted roots and plants spiral from the staff, extending its reach.

More and more Grimm start to pour out from the forest, a couple of them at first. Irvibanes as large as her, if not larger. Beowolves, growling, slashing and biting at them.

"Fall back and start shooting!" Maya shouts as she swings the Irvibane off her weapon.

She deals with the closest Grimm before switching to her rifle. Pyrrha hears the thundering sound of shooting as she takes a few tentatives steps back and the riverside gets lit up. With two Irvibanes on her sights, she shoots once, adjusts and takes another shot. The muzzle of Milo flashes and she squints, blinded by the sudden light. A couple of shots ring close to her, and she recognizes her mother's weapon.

"I can't see," she says over the sound of gunfire.

"Cover me for five," Gabriel yells back, reaching for his bag. She sees Gabriel pulling out a disk almost as big as his bag. "Shoot this!" And he throws the disk overhead, towards the forest. She takes aim as four guns fire.

Against the night sky, Pyrrha sees the disk shattering, unsure of who hit it. She tries to breathe and finds herself unable to. Even if just for a moment, she feels the air being pulled away from her as the disk explodes, covering everything in her sights in fire and leaving her dumbfounded. Only for a moment.

Pyrrha sees the Grimm, running shapes of darkness against the spreading flames.

She takes aim.


	17. Chapter 17

_I can do this._

I've always liked the idea of camping, ever since I was a kid. Something about the idea of camping seemed fun, probably because of the stories my father told me. The contact with nature, starry night skies, and campfires. It all seemed oddly enthralling.

I watch for a moment, amazed at an odd sense of loss that strikes me as the whole world seems to burn, bright enough that it hurts my eyes. I squint, but don't dare to avert them from it, just because of the pins and needles I feel on my skin, marking the dark figures that approach ever faster now, glowing red eyes noticeable even against a backdrop of flames, dashing and rushing into our direction. A sea of monsters, both bigger and faster than I was.

Given enough of it, time blots out memories. Even with the reminder of it the first time I read about Grimm and found out that most of them based on animals, insects, plants, myths from my world, the outright supernatural or a weird, twisted amalgamation of any of those, I ended up forgetting about them. The media, and there's a lot of it, covered the way they usually grouped with the same types, and common attack methods to their incursion — they didn't migrate, they incursed, which meant even more uncontrolled frenzy and that most of the rules on grouping didn't really apply there — patterns and theories about the way they evolved under different conditions.

Older books and reports relied more on detailed drawings, some of them far too different from the real thing because they were either drawn from memory or from a second-hand account. And now I realize that there's a lot more about Grimm than their figure, there were a dozen of descriptions for a Nemean alone, going from it having two heads or a different, if any, plating protecting parts of their body before the 'modern age' came and pictures got good enough to settle that argument.

I recognize a couple of them, Beowolves and Ursas were the largest amongst the horde, though the closer they got it seemed more and more likely that the group consisted mostly of those two types. They're huge, even from far away on all fours and running. From the little I could see with the raging flames behind them, some depictions were surprisingly close to the real thing — no armored Ursas, or three-headed Beowolves from what I could tell, which was good.

But there's a clear difference between looking at a video or a picture in a book. No manmade color could be that dark.

It felt wrong. It looked as if it ate away all the lights before it could even get a chance to escape to the point that, if not for the bone-white masks and glowing eyes that seemed to almost float, the scene could pass off as the world itself vanishing in a wave and returning to nothingness.

 _I can do this_ , I have to repeat to myself as I aim down the sights, awfully aware of the already empty magazine at my feet. I feel a connection to the gun, like an odd, vague extension to my body, when I focus my Aura on the gun itself. An Ursa falls when I pull the trigger and soon evaporates, and I can't help the little satisfaction I can draw from it.

I could see the impact of the bullets on their bodies as their profiles moved. They would flinch or stagger back, completely dropping to the ground as a 'lucky' shot hit their running legs, or even better, heads.

The ones behind them stumble on the fallen bodies in a mindless rush. The Irvibanes that climb over the bodies are an easier shot than the ones that skitter far too close to the ground, that even under the light of the fire I could barely see them, aiming only when they were far too close.

I shoot, again and again, pulling the lever and chambering another cartridge and taking aim at the next one. The soreness I feel from each kick of the gun is covered by Aura and I curse how bad I am at controlling the recoil, taking away from me precious moments. I feel the weight of each shot I miss as Grimm come closer, making me only speed up my shooting. My right-hand releases the empty magazine, the third one by now, with a press of a button and fishes out another from the pouches even as my left that steadies the barrel takes aim at a new Beowolf that comes from further left.

In a weird combination of clear mind and pounding heart my hands tremble, and I move too fast, bumping the magazine onto the gun and instead of simply sliding it into the slot. It shifts enough in my hands that I miss it again, the Beowolf ever closer.

Dropping the full magazine, I feel the warmth of Aura strengthening as I draw it out and into my body. I flip the gun and gripping the barrel with both hands, I leap forward, suddenly realizing how massive the werewolf-like creature really is, as he raises an arm thicker than both of mine put together.

More often than not I hit a solid block while training, even if that had been changing over time, it still happened. At first, it was fists and legs against fists and legs, — not unlike the very few instances that I traded punches with friends as a joke — I felt as if I was handled with kid gloves since I hadn't really learned how to use Aura like Arslan and Bolin did, but we still don't go 'all out, all the time' now since we were never the only people in the park.

Then, I got better at handling Aura and the kid's gloves were off. I missed those days.

Because even if Aura stopped the hurt from damaging, it didn't exactly stop it from hurting. Getting bashed on the skull with a staff every other day of the week wasn't fun. One night, I got distracted enough that I started playing a song only to halfway through realizing that it was in Portuguese. I knew that Aura healed those kinds of things, but under the bravado, he was a nice guy, so it was kind of amusing when I told them the story the next day. Got him to teach me some staff techniques.

The sensation of how they felt might've been forgotten by then, but I wasn't really stupid. With the time I had, going barehanded against anything was a bad idea.

I swing at the incoming paw and it feels different than any other times I was blocked or got a clean hit in, it's as if I hit a steel cable, the impact enough to make my hands numb for the moment it takes for Aura to take over. There's a give under the strike, even as little as it was, as it's pushed down and ivory white claws raise a shower of dirt as its paw digs into the ground and bends in a way I'm sure it's not supposed to.

The Beowolf roars, a deep, guttural thing that rattles my bones, open maws leveled with my head by now and, twisting my body to hit it as hard as possible, I swing again. The mask cracks, and I notice how incredibly solid it was, and some of its blood splashes on me, a thick and viscous ooze, as the body falls. A month-old garbage smell fills the air for a moment before I see the dark liquid evaporating, leaving behind only the smell of smoke from the burning forest.

I turn as an Ursa charges at me, its companions not far behind.

Ducking under its claws as it swings, one of my hands work on getting another magazine out of the pouch. I circle around to its back, loading the rifle as the Ursa swings again.

Without time to seat the rifle on my shoulder and aim, I step in as the Ursa goes for a third swing. It comes low, aiming for my head and I slam the stock on the thing's arm, hammering it down.

The shock numbs my hands, and the gun flies off of them, the bear's swing following through, even if slowed down. I flare my Aura, raising an arm in a startle to block a paw that seems big enough to cover my whole torso.

I've never been hit by a car, my brother had when he was younger, and this is how I imagine it feels like. A single moment of weightlessness that's over as soon as it starts that just adds to the sudden disorientation I feel as I lose the ground beneath my feet. I roll on the grass and dirt near the river, shooting to my feet in an instant.

The wonder of when will the pain start is soon answered as I try to move. Pain flares on my ribs with each breath. The warmth of the Aura seems to push out the pain from the edges, seeping into flesh and making things alright again.

By now I had been through enough practices to learn not to rush to my weapon blindly even as I see the humongous bear towering over me, the same paw that hit me raised high. I prepare myself — to dodge, to move, to get out of the damn way, to do anything else but block that again — and I hear a gunshot. I watch as the monstrous bear falls as a piece of its skull is blown away.

From the corner of my eye, I see a shadow lunging. Without time to think about the why or how, I raise my fists, pumping as much Aura into them as I can as I duck, flipping it on my back before a shot rings out. The Irvibane dies by my feet and dissipates.

I only notice how delicate of a balance we were holding when I glance at Maya, bow still raised towards me and with an Ursa far too close to her. With a snap, she turns, drawing nothing and firing an arrow that unfurls as it hits the bear's leg, roots digging into the ground and slowing down its charge, but even then it hits her. Knocked back, she can't finish it off as an Irvibane pounces on her, and Maya swats it away with a strike of her staff.

Pyrrha, it could only be her, covers for Maya and with a flash of light and a thunderous noise, the ensnared Ursa's head explodes. I see red moving and she disappears amongst the Grimm that push against her. The sound of metal being struck several times rings through the riverside before it stops and, from the corner of my eye, I see even more Grimm charging at them.

Looking at their mothers I could tell they were ready to help with a single glance. Sword, shield, and rifle in hands and eyes fairly intent on me.

One deep breath.

On the back of my mind I recognize the glimpses I caught of three or four that are still closing in on each of two. Focusing on the front, a dozen dark profiles if not more, all framed by the fire at their backs as they rush forward, growing more and more at each passing second.

"I'll run distraction!" I have to yell over incoming roars and howls and don't have the time to wait for them to acknowledge it or even notice it as the pinpricks take over, every bone in my body telling me to get down as a Beowolf gets far too close.

I hear its growl as I roll on the ground, and I draw the knife from its sheath when I get up, an odd connection encompassing it the moment I touch it. My upper body twists immediately and I charge backward, pressing my shoulder against its arm and stabbing whatever part of it was closest. The blade digs into its chest and I brace myself, warmth turning into a deep burn as I push more Aura out when I feel my feet sinking into the ground as it tries to swing its paw.

I bring my arm back before the Beowolf can do anything else, stabbing up and through its jaw. The resistance I felt — somehow it opposed the knife, pushing, instead of getting away from it — shifts as the handle pries my hand open with the weight of the Beowolf's body.

Ignoring the growing ache in my hand and the lack of a weapon, I run, aware of the few steps between the gun and I. Even more, aware of an Ursa that rushes ever closer towards me, and the moment I think I can, I throw myself and tuck into a roll, grabbing the fallen rifle in the process.

I shoot to a crouch, spinning it and jamming the barrel deep into the chest of an Ursa. And I thank whoever's idea it was to take off the trigger guard from the gun as my hand slides down part of the rifle.

Pulling in as much as I can, I stumble into a run towards the Grimm that came from the burning forest.

I throw myself in between them, aiming for strong leg sweeps whenever I could. I dive under a paw that I catch from the corner of my eye, and, holding the rifle life a staff I shoot something on the opposite side, using the recoil to crack the chest of a Beowolf that had gotten too close.

They're a swarm, almost climbing on top of each other in a maddened rage to get to me. Twisting and ducking, I dodge out of the way of strikes, but even then a few catch me on the side or the back with enough force to make me feel a minor whiplash, pain spreading like wildfire. I brace myself when it happens, flaring my Aura and reinforcing my legs so I don't fall.

I break away from them, and using two bursts of Aura, finding myself with more room to breathe.

Beowolves try to catch up, rushing forward and circling me, though some of them are quickly knocked down by a bullet on the legs and finished off with another as they roar.

I feel the heat radiating from the forest on my back, growing every passing moment, and a part of my mind files it away as a problem for later as I reload, hands now working like clockwork, remembering something John had said after he had taught me how to shoot.

Aura affected every aspect of combat, amongst other, non-combative, ones. I found dealing with the fine tuning of Aura easier than actually shooting what I wanted, even though I had to put a lot more than I thought for that.

It was more than a more stable shot or a better control of recoil, those were just the body empowering itself with a product of the soul.

If infused with enough Aura the bullet wouldn't shatter, it would even be faster due to some interaction between it and Dust, which made smaller caliber weapons hit a lot harder than they should. Though not enough and the Aura could disperse before reaching the target, which made smaller caliber weapons hit a lot harder than they should.

At the start, John corrected me just by watching me aim and dry fire the rifle at the targets in the distance, made of the same hard light of the Scroll screens, and people had given me some odd looks at the shooting range.

It was weird reciting the gunslinger lessons, lines that were almost as iconic as the first line in the entire Series, the words rolled off my tongue in clunks and even if I couldn't help the little twitch of my lips when I started, I kept going, pushing through them. I had spent days repeating the same words to myself, and little by little, the lines lost their meaning of a quote and became what they were supposed to be. A lesson.

Ursas charge at me and I feel the pulse of Aura, seeping into the gun, the connection I felt with it growing stronger and deeper. Instead of the vague sensation of the weapon, I feel the minor shifts of the mechanisms in the weapon as I aim, the following thunderous noise that vibrates my chest as I shoot, the dulling of the connection with the rifle as the bullet hits an Ursa, blowing its head back and I see a chunk of it missing.

I repeat the process, shooting, again and again, the feeling of being overwhelmed soon coming back despite the numbers I put down, making me take a step back. In between the horde I watch as a few of them give up on me and rush towards the river only to meet their end to a flash of red and bronze, the fire reflecting on her shield. Another one falls, taken out by something out of my field of view.

They charge in the little moment of leeway there is when I try to reload and I realize the mistake I made in cornering myself.

My shirt clung to my back from how close I was to the fire, I feel the intent on the stares, howls, and growls of each of the few that remained.

Bracing myself, I shift my hold on the rifle, a feverish heat spreading as I charge back at them. One swing, and I see Pyrrha and Maya culling the ones on the back, drawing more and more attention to themselves.

I swing a rifle that weighs nothing, duck under the paw of a lonely Ursa that feels close enough to take an eye. The mask cracks when I hammer it down, though the only thing that I hear is the blood thumping in my ears, and it doesn't die. Focus. It's momentaneous, but I feel the fatigue pilling up like the reinforcement is gone, weighing my body down and making my knees buckle. The weight of the world seems to settle on my shoulders when I try to swing it again.

Focus. Aura takes over soon enough, and with another strike, I hear the mask cracking even more. It breaks, the creature's snout crumpling under it as a putrid smell wafts up when its blood pools on the ground the time it takes for the body to completely disappear.

There's relief the moment I see a clear field in front of me. Letting tension I didn't realize was there flow out, I feel numb fingers letting go of the rifle, but I don't move to pick it up.

My limbs burn. Pain shifts and extends, as if someone poured molten steel down my nerves. My skin feels to tight. I could feel the cracks forming and growing as if the tiniest movement would make me crumble. With short, quick breaths, I force myself to not look down.

I watch as the four of them look around before joy and relief wash over their faces. I feel the same as I breathe in the warm air and soot, taking the edge off the skin-bursting pain.

Maya gets close to me and says something, pulling a limp arm and trying to get a look at my back, but I simply watch her lips move, the words a scrambled mess of sounds. Her voice with whispers under it, barely audible. Blue eyes look back as I breathe in, the scrambled mess making more sense now. Leona says something about the fire, and she stays behind while the other three walk off of my view. She fishes out something out of her pocket, a low, bluish glow that she raises to her ear.

We just stand there, trees creaking, slow and far in between at first, and the roaring fire the only sounds that fill my ears.

"What was that?" I finally realize that the pain is gone when Leona speaks. I look down to my body, glad that everything is the way it should be, sans a few claw marks on my arms. She takes off her hat, furry ears twitching, and she brushes her hair.

"It's… complicated. " I try to shrug and wince, the movement pulling flesh open with a sting. People hunted a girl for something really close to what I can do, but it was also almost half a century ago.

She walks closer. With one hand on my shoulder, she makes me turn and looks at my back. I see the fire, smaller now and seeming to grow weaker and weaker. There's a word at the tip of my tongue, but I can't figure out exactly what it is.

"You have less Aura than I thought, some of the attacks broke through." I could almost hear the frown on her face as a soot smell fills the air and the word is knocked out of my mind. I breathe in again, the air loaded and heavier now. "You're bleeding."

"I have bandages on my bag," bending down to pick up the rifle, my knees fail and buckle. A sudden grab on my good arm stops me from falling as I feel pull on the back of my shoulder when I pick it up. I half walk, half hop towards the river, breaking away from her and noticing my bag had been trampled at some point. I can't help the way I twist my lips at it.

Plopping down on the ground I rummage through my bag, noticing the scratches on my arms were deeper than I thought and hope the things I need are still there. No alcohol smell, which is good.

The bottles go on the ground, but the bandages go on top of my leg. Not much better than the ground by now, but still, better.

"When we were talking, before the Grimm came," she picks up a water bottle and rips the back of my shirt with ease. "Did you use your Semblance?" Cool water washes down my back and I feel a little sting. "Can you use a Semblance?"

"It's something else," my voice pitches up in the last word and I stiffen up. Pouring alcohol on an open wound is not comfortable. Not even sure if that's how you should treat these kinds of things. I could tell how many scratches and gashes I had, though. "I haven't felt alright in a while. Ever since I woke up here." I end up admitting.

Thinking back, I only remember panicking when I thought I was dying. An overfed fire was only a startle, underfeeding it was only a way for me to know how much wood I had to get to pass the night. I was tired. I was exhausted. But I was calmer than I had any right to be.

"I write for my parents. My friends. I tried to, at least." I correct myself. "There's actually a stack of papers on top of the desk that that's basically that. Letters that I start sometimes, just to stop because I can't figure out what to say." I feel the press of the gauze on my back and bite back a hiss. "I know that I should miss them. And I do. It's just…" Explaining intensity of emotion is an awkward thing, I realize.

"I thought it would be that," I point towards the forest, "but it was more like a campfire." A pause.

More gauze is pressed on my back and I hear the ripping sound of tape.

"This should hold up until help gets here," she rests her hand on my better shoulder, her tone soft and low. It's not the first time that I notice it, but hers is the kind of voice that I felt could be heard anywhere, something her daughter carried, even if she didn't use it much. "When we were talking I thought about mom and my brother. How it felt when they…" A pause, she breathes out and I feel the shift when she gets up, her voice a little louder. "Whatever that was, it wasn't normal."

"Maybe this was one of the things that was better to know before going out to the emotion-tracking monster-filled forest." I try to put some humor into my voice. This was probably why people liked my playing. I infected them with whatever this was, making them feel what I feel.

"It was not all bad," she says. "It's been a while since we did something like this. It was nice Nicer than I remember." I lift an eyebrow at that, the bandages on my back and soreness on my shoulders giving me a different opinion. "All things considered, we didn't find any Grimm all day, probably because of you. Even this close to the walls, do you have any idea how hard it is to find no Grimm for a day?" She cuts me off before I can interject.

"Thought you would wrestle an Ursa back then," amusement fills her voice as she rests the stock of her rifle on the ground. I was already done and tired, even though I knew that I shouldn't, but she was still looking around, prepared for any strays. "You shouldn't have. It was a good idea, but what you didn't see is that they couldn't help you because of a few Ursa that got to them. Which made them worry. Which attracted more Grimm."

I look at the fire, now a modicum of what it was, nonexistent lights dancing in front of my eyes. There's the turbine sound from afar, a very high pitched sound, that seemed to approach.

"It happens often enough that people created a few protocols for it. So I wouldn't worry about it," she starts. I look at her, at least try to, and she points towards the fire. "The Kingdom cares about the nature around its walls, but it also knows that a few lives are worth more than a couple of trees. Some of them at least."

 _Should I admit that the fire was bigger than I thought?_

I made those tools just to scratch an itch I had and couldn't ignore.

I tried channeling mana into everything, testing things out because I couldn't remember if I learned them. Wood took hours to build up enough charge for something small to happen. Rocks, on the other hand, burst into dust in a few seconds, taking a better control just so that it wouldn't happen.

But Dust… Dust was interesting.

I could draw threads from it, I remember doing it, just by putting a little mana into my finger, though channeling some into the Dust made it explode, which, even with the domestic, low-quality Dust I was working with, was bad enough to encase me in ice for a couple of hours.

The threads were worth it though. Ice Dust that behaved like a battery, powering the single rune that worked like a thermal machine.

Hours of work, lost. I rub my fingers, _definitely_ not looking forward to doing it all over again.


	18. Chapter 18

"No, no, stop," Arslan shakes her head at me, letting her guard down as frustrated as I am, except I'm the one in pain. "You're going to hurt yourself like that." She walks closer and I watch as olive green light ripples across her skin, remaining on one fist cocked at her waist for a moment longer than the rest of her body. "You have to do it like this."

She explains the move again, and I feel the stares of the others on the back of my head through the non-glass. Charging Aura on to a fist, but not forgetting to spread it on the body. I was doing the first, but not the second. Defense and offense all wrapped up in one.

The time we went against Grimm put in perspective how I compared to the others. Maya was battered, more... dirty than actually hurt, and Pyrrha had come out of it unscathed, which told me more about her skill level given the type of armor she wore. And so I trained, sparring whenever I could. Asking for help.

Despite using the same weapon, Maya and Bolin fought very differently. While he would favor blocks and parries, spinning and twirling his staff in order to gain momentum for swings, Maya would favor thrusts, quick and precise, using bursts of Aura to give her blows an extra oomph, constantly repositioning herself.

Arslan is straightforward, charging in, circular motions to gain momentum and then striking. Aura or not, her strikes felt strong enough shake my guts if I took them the wrong way. She proved to be trickier wielding her rope dart, foregoing head-on charges and using it as a way to destabilize whoever she fought.

It was, also, how she had taken out both the barrel and the stock of my rifle from my hands.

I don't try to recover it, going for hand-to-hand instead, it's a bad choice, but I'm not sure I could afford another hit. I also don't try to get it back when she pauses our sparring.

"Now, try again." She says, the frown on her face getting replaced by excitement as she charges in. A kick turns into a back fist as she spins, and I have to lean into it to not lose my balance.

I don't try to stop it, following through with the blow instead, keeping contact throughout the movement. I hook her arm from above with my own, keeping it trapped between my body and forearm before she can pull it back.

One strike, a palm into the pit of her stomach. I feel the breath that leaves her lungs as I let go of the trapped arm only to grab her wrist with my other hand, locking her right arm with my own, and pull.

I swing at her side once before she regains control of her breathing, another time when she tries a kick and I pull her off balance.

Arslan then pulls her body close to her arm, planting her feet down. A kick to the back of her knee doesn't even make her flinch, and so I brace myself for what's to come.

She doesn't charge in. One step. That's all it takes.

I feel the strength of my hold waning as I refocus, projecting the flow out, protecting my body.

Pain explodes on my chest and when I hear the buzzer, I'm on the ground.

I roll to my back, my chest rising and falling as pain flares up and I try to regain some breath. Without even trying to move more, I take a minute.

"Are you okay?" She's as out of breath as I am, worried and further away than I thought. I stare at the ceiling, too bright lights blinding me.

"I'm good," the words come out more as a sigh and I wave it off. "It just... " I sit up slowly when the doors open, Maya and Bolin entering, carrying all of our bags. We had made a point in not staying in the room whenever the others fought, something about the time I hurled Bolin across the room, even if we could watch through the glass.

I get up, and just to be sure I give myself a look-over, accidents had happened before. She hands me the parts of my rifle and I put them together, snapping the rifle to its complete form with a metallic click.

"You should think about focusing on just one weapon," she says before taking her bag. "Isn't that... the third one?"

"Technically fourth," I resist the urge to make a dumb joke about my body being a weapon. "But this feels better. The whole rifle is a little unwieldy."

Arslan fishes a bottle of water from her bag, and I do the same. Her eyebrows shoot up as she seems to remember something.

"How far along classes you are?"

There was one thing I found interesting about this world. The combat schools aren't just for combat, they provided actual classes there, which by the end of it earned you a degree.

So, since Arslan isn't able to attend classes, she started studying on her own. Getting her degree the other way, which I considered for a moment at the very start, before I started work.

Interesting too, was how the constants for physics and mathematics still matched with my world's. Same equations, close to equal deductions. Someone smarter would probably be able to tell something from that. All I could do with that was help them with their homework sometimes.

And Vytalian being the one and the only language for almost a century now, the others having either died or just being adopted into another, something I found a little strange considering what started the War in the first place.

Bolin goes through each subject while Arslan notes things down on her Scroll.

"Oh, right," Arslan says when we're already out of the building. "Will you guys enter the Tournament this year? I thought about doing it." She questions. Though Bolin strongly shakes his head no, Maya shrugs, unsure. "I bet if you could actually shoot us you'd have a better chance."

The last sentence is aimed at me, though I wasn't even sure I could enter. I keep quiet for the moment, just shaking my head.

"Thank your grandfather for me. It's not always we get to fight in a room like that," Arslan adds just before they start walking away.

"Yeah, thanks," he parrots after some encouragement from Arslan.

I can't help the thought that comes to my head. _An odd way to spend a Saturday._

Also, I'm hungry.

"See you later," Maya starts walking, and I spin on my heels to catch up to her.

"Leona's not picking you up today?"

"Mom's in a visit to Old Mistral," she says "she'll be back for dinner though. So we'll still be doing that."

"Where is Old Mistral?" I hadn't read about that, most of the book referred to the city as just Mistral.

"It's on the cliffs under the Academy," she looks around and points to the highest building there was, built upon the peaks of two mountains, a huge gap in between them, "there."

"And Eton?"

"It's a first-year trip, so he's with her."

I hum in understanding, and once again were in silence.

I had this craving since morning, strong enough that I could almost taste it. Sweet and vanillary. Couldn't figure out what.

"Wanna eat something, then?"

She stops on her tracks, blinks, then nods.

It doesn't take long for us to find somewhere to eat. An old-school bell rings when I push the door open, keeping it open for a moment after I enter. The smell of freshly baked goods hits my nose. A mixture of spices and sugar. And tartness from some fruit that they must be using. I feel my stomach growling then.

No staff comes, but since there are people on other tables we just walk in.

"This isn't exactly the kind of place I thought you would want to go to," she says after a waiter comes with menus. I had seen some of the cakes that were on display when we entered, so I had something in mind already.

"Never came here before actually," I go through the menu, outright ignoring the savory part of it. It was a nice place, the windowed front letting a lot of natural light in, a few frames of old pictures hung around the walls, decorating the pastel walls. I look up from the menu when I register what she said, one eyebrow raised, and hers is already down, her hands occupied with her Scroll. She sets it down when I look at her, mimicking my expression.

"Well, look around," she points out, and I look at the people that are in the cafe. It's groups of girls mostly, around Maya's age, with two or three of them each, and less than a handful of couples.

"I like sweets," I retort, looking around, and the same waiter is back and takes our orders.

The wait is done in silence, only the eventual noise of clinking cups against saucers when the waiter eventually brings our drinks, and I figure it is a given. Maya wasn't propense to talking, even during family dinners. But she doesn't seem shy, there's no fidgeting or looking around.

She turns to look at me and I let my eyes wander around the room, ignoring how small the tables are when I end up bumping my knee on Maya's, and landing on one table for a moment before focusing on the next, catching bits and pieces of their conversations.

There's a group of girls about three tables down, all around Maya's age, talking behind another one's back. Holding nothing back. Vicious little things really.

A man seems to complain, gesturing wildly to the same waiter that took our orders, despite him being next to the table, his date nodding her head vehemently. The waiter is commendable, just nodding and walking to the back, disappearing behind a door, and I feel a slight sense of relief that I don't have to work in something like this.

"Will you enter the tournament?"

The question snaps me back from my divagation. From the corner of my eye, I see the man's date nodding her head, blonde ponytail shaking at the movement.

"I want to, but I'm not even sure I can." What I knew about the Tournament was more from contextual clues I got from the couple of times Pyrrha and her family came for dinner than anything else. "And even if I can't, if it's fighting people, there's you guys."

"You can, you would just be in a different division. I think you should." she hesitates for a moment. "Is it because you're going back?" I nod, shifting a little in my chair. Vague enough to not be weird to talk in public. "Any idea how?"

"I've been reading, looking for anything that seemed out of place, but…" I shrug. Roland, the main character, wanted to find the nexus of all worlds so he could save his own, and he did it. John dies in New York, being pushed into traffic by a man, appearing in a desert when he wakes up again. Except that, later, he doesn't die, only to be dragged into the same world to a family, mismatched, but better.

 _Destiny. Hard to fight against that._

"I'll find something," I simply say.

They didn't know about those things, of course. They knew about the books, but not the will behind the world that pushed things in their tracks. Those were more tidbits of information that had no real impact in what you could do, except maybe make you doubt your existence and sanity for a while.

But I know, and that's the important thing. I know that it is a matter of time, all I need is to get away from these walls, walk the world, and then eventually I will find a way back.

"Excuse me," the waiter approaches our table, quiet, and it's impossible to miss the way he sets his jaw when we look up at him. "I'll have to ask you to leave," his tone is quiet, a far shot from the one he used earlier.

"Why? What did we do?" The food hadn't arrived yet. I had a half-finished cup of tea while Maya had barely touched hers.

"The problem isn't you. Sir." The words seem almost ripped out of him, the last one added almost as an afterthought.

I turn to Maya to ask if she was okay with leaving, I could argue, I wouldn't like it, but I could. She averts her eyes when I do that, collapsing her Scroll and putting it away. I'm not proud of the moment it takes me to realize what's going on. Maya had pulled into herself, tense, and I see the way her lips thin until they almost disappear.

In the same moment, my stomach drops, and I feel a burning feeling growing in its place. There's the vague feeling of my nails digging into my palms, my body going from flush to boiling in a flash. And, as if a switch that had been flipped, everything's gone before I even have the chance to reel it in.

"I need you to be calm," my jaw relaxes as I reach for her hand, stopping her attempt to leave. I could see it her face when her eyes meet mine, her tense jaw, and clenched fist. If I didn't do something she would. I move quick so the shock is higher, I pull her hand, bringing it towards my lips. "It's okay."

It's way too far of an overstep, but annoyed, or even embarrassed, is better than angry at any point.

She freezes, for a moment with wide eyes. I wasn't even trying to keep a hold on her hand, but the speed that she disappears is enough to pull it anyway, making my torso hit against the table, rattling it.

I get up, picking up the weapons from where they were leaning against the wall, — in her rush Maya had forgotten hers — taking the time to scan the room.

The waiter clearly steps back, wary, and I see him looking around. There's some quiet comfort, just for a moment, but still, in thinking that if I tried I could bring this whole building down.

But the question is if it would help.

I make my way out and into the street, and I look around. But no sign of her.

 _Didn't see her passing by the windows, so… this way._

It's a long avenue that braces the mountainside, and I can't help but think about what happened while I walk through it. Too many things went wrong.

I should've noticed it sooner. Had I been paying attention, all it would take was a little Aura, and I would've been sure of what that guy said to the waiter. What kind of excuse would someone give so that is at least pass as rational.

All because I read the books, seeing and remembering but not thinking about anything else except what I was looking for.

Faunus weren't described in the best of terms, and the older the book the worse it got. Emotional. Easy to turn to violence. Less than stellar intelligence. Believed to be demons, or to be ' _closer to their animals counterparts than the humane_ '.

Maya almost crashes into me, and it's no surprise, I'm lost in thought and she walks with her head down, quickly pacing, but even when we almost collide her head doesn't move, it's just her eyes that look up, meeting mine for an instant before she turns them away.

I breathe in and out, making sure to not sigh, holding back the urge to reach out to her as my heart sinks, reining in that feeling before I make things even worse.

She reaches for her weapon, weakly pulling it away from me.

We walk, and in my head, I go through the options, thinking of ways to break the uncomfortable silence that had set between us. I knew that time would help — in more than the 'time heals all wounds' sort of help — and that she would be back to normal before long. Her tail wasn't in the loose, but tense, curl around her leg as when I had found her, instead just waving as she walked. But still, I hesitate, again and again, unsure if not talking about what had happened was better.

"I'm sorry," I start, but she cuts me off before I can say anything else.

"It wasn't your fault." The tone she takes is the same kind that Eton did several weeks ago, just before Summer started. Bitter and resentment all wrapped up in one. She hides it better though.

A few more steps before she seems to notice something, and straightens her shoulders, holding herself taller.

"There were some girls from class there," her voice doesn't carry the same tension anymore. "It used to be worse. They do things like this because they can't do anything else."

"Like they do with Eton?"

Her head snaps to my direction, and I stop walking just as she does, adjusting the strap holding the rifle to my shoulder. She tenses up, and I see her hands clenching into a fist hard enough that it's shaking.

"When." It's a question. I know it is, even if it doesn't sound like one.

I hesitate for a moment, and she glares at me, together with the way her lips thin enough that they almost disappear, they make me take a step back, while on the back of my mind I recognize that this is all her.

"It was before we went outside the walls. I found him in the park with three other kids."

Narrowed blue eyes wander, her jaw still tense.

"He told me that you were training together," her voice is softer, and she seems to almost deflate. "What happened?"

"The same thing that happened to you back there happened to them, except they got scared," I continue. " It probably didn't help that I hit one of them."

"He tried to hit me first." I try to justify myself.

There's a pause, and she sighs, dejected. I take a breathe in, putting my own thoughts in order.

"Eton probably didn't want you to worry," I tell her, "he seemed okay, all things considered."

"And what do you know!?" Her outburst catches me off-guard, enough so that my hands twitch, and I feel the rifle slipping from my shoulder. "You don't know him! You just come in, talk to him, filling his head with..." She catches herself before saying anything else, huffing and then stomping away.

I hesitate, before quickly following after her, ignoring the couple callouts, humorous, but that completely misses the point.

I walk beside her for a while before finally saying anything.

"The same thing happened to me once," I tentatively say. It was a period of a few months, short-lived but still not something I liked to think about. "Though not for the same reason, I think."

"I fought back, but it didn't exactly help." We had slowed to a crawl, and that didn't help. My body urges me forward as my focus splits between keeping my emotions in check. "I was just one person. Short, thin enough that half the time some relatives thought I was sick."

I know the look she has in her eyes even without directly looking at her. I shrug.

"But then I grew up. A lot, and fast. Found out that just hurting one of them instead of all of them was _way_ better." My brother was there for the first year after I changed schools, but he graduated right after.

"It was around the time I got interested in martial arts, but my mom didn't want me to take those kinds of classes because she was afraid of me getting hurt. Same thing with my brother. Which is... ironic?" I focus on using just the right muscles for the smile, trying to cast away the heavy atmosphere that had set between us.

"I'm sorry," I don't even let her finish, waving anything away as she tries to apologize. We all have sore spots. I understood that better than anyone. Most of the time, I didn't handle being taunted very well.

"Your grandfather took me in when he didn't have to." The direct approach was best, sometimes. "The least I can do is try to make sure you guys don't get hurt."

I see some people walking around, wafer cones toppled with ice cream, and finally take notice of how warm it is. Both the walk and talk had taken its toll. "I could go for some ice cream."

She stares at me for a while, caught in a mood-whiplash.

I pay for both of us, pointing out that in the rush the guy manning the cash gave me the wrong change. I wasn't made of money, after all.

We find a bench, and I taste the sweet strawberry goodness – not quite what I wanted, but what can you do – devouring the thing in a couple of minutes. Soon, I'm left with only the paper that wrapped the cone while Maya had barely eaten hers. Without anything else to talk about, a newfound silence had set between us. There's no urge to talk this time. The mood still far too awkward.

Absentmindedly, I start folding the paper, not even sure what to make of it, but my fingers find their pace. The end result is crude, the paper far too soft and just small enough to make it difficult to cut it into the right shape, but when I press on its back, the frog jumps from my knee onto the bench.

"How do you even learn things like that?" She asks. I gladly tell her, going from this to the few weeks learning piano. The few months trying to do sleight of hand and throwing knives. I do keep to myself the more dubious things, born from an odd interest in the burglar type of criminal, but I tell her about the times I baked pastries with my Mom, how my Dad taught me how to ride a horse and had started to teach me how to drive just a couple of days before I woke up here.

I relax, remembering about the times we would talk about comics, books or movies. I sink into the wooden bench the best as I can at the memories that come from songs. While Mom and I tried, Dad... was something else. I remember finding hilarious when I noticed the way my parents encouraged me into trying to do things. It was a song, of all things. Really pretty, _really difficult._ Father would tell me how, how I should learn it, what should I do. Mom would tell me how nice of a song it was, how she would like to hear when I did learn it. _When,_ she had said.

When I come to, the sky is a deep orange, and Maya is still sitting by my side.


	19. Chapter 19

"Hey, thanks for coming," there's the chirp of a bird when she speaks and she pauses for a moment, eyes trailing down to my hands. "You brought food?"

"Felt a little hungry on the way here," she frees my hands from both the plastic bag and the book I was holding. "Also, you've been helping me a lot these past few months. I can help you study at least."

I feel that her house is the epitome of those modern Japanese homes that I had seen on TV. I take off my shoes as soon as I get in, placing them next to the others. The house has enough open space that from the entrance I can already see its end. There's a set of stairs pretty close to the entrance that leads up where the bedrooms probably are, but we stay on the first floor.

One glance at the book that's already opened on the table and I recognize the diagrams and figures.

 _Ah. Sweet, sweet physics._

I found that languages had too many rules, with what sometimes seemed to be even more exceptions than what the rules actually covered. Too many things to remember.

Numbers were nice, at least at the level I learned, each situation taking a method to solve, sometimes more, but even then it all followed the same logic, it all had the same effect.

She works at a steady pace, bored, but clearly focused, sometimes asking questions but figuring out by herself what to do. At least I'm more sure about what to do now then when I first tried helping Maya with one particular question she couldn't get. It did help that she was having trouble with optics, something that was almost second nature by now after all the training that John put me through.

My fingers drum on the cover of the still closed book. In between the bouts of explanation, I stared at it at the same time wanting but not willing to open it up again. So I looked around.

It's a normal room, A sofa, TV — I still wondered how they set the dimensions for the screen — but it's a picture frame that catches my eye. It might've been an old one, we're far enough that I couldn't see the details, and using Aura would've been far effort than it was polite. I recognize the vague shapes of four people, the blue sky behind them.

"I think it's time for a break," the chair rattles as she gets up. "Do you want anything else to drink? We have juice or tea if you want."

I shake my head, fishing out another apple from the bag I brought.

"Anything interesting happened this week?" The question seems odd, out of place. And then I realize something.

We recognized each other as friends, hard not to after punching each other every week, but we still didn't know much about one another. When we talked, it was more on exchanging notes on how to best attack and defend. Strategies and weak points. Things to work on. Or just me being there as the others talked.

It was actually a wonder how we managed to keep this up for months. Something to be studied, really.

"The usual. Work, exercise." I ponder about how, or even if I should tell her about it. "Well, a couple of guys tried to rob me again this week." It was the third time it happened in the span of a few weeks, actually. Which did get me curious.

"You… are okay though?" At the same time that I'm touched, I take a little offense to it, which apparently shows. "I mean if they got you while your Aura was down." She pauses. "Wait. Again?"

"I'm fine. I may not be from around here, but even I had to deal with those things," this time I did have the time to think about how to deal with them first. "They also weren't the sneakiest people."

Taking a route out of the way that I usually took, away from people, I walk a little faster, getting to a bridge, and the good thing about a city built on a mountain, there's a lot of bridges, with varying drops. Again, they had no Aura.

I did get to realize a dream and take the page from a certain Dark Knight's book, not the page I wanted, but you play with what you get, to find out why there were so many people trying to rob me.

Someone was paying them for a job.

They didn't know who of course, they had to get the bag first to get paid. The man was incredibly helpful, saying they had a whole system where the person hiring their services, wouldn't meet the person doing the job, no matter what kind of job. And they were just part of some group or organization where they would get hired.

Interesting what a drop of a few meters can make someone tell you.

I did wonder if those things would still happen after the Mistral Tournament or if they would just send better and better people to steal a notebook with a few songs scribbled on it. The weird thing was that I didn't know which option I wanted.

"You're not?" A moment of hesitation that I try to cover by drinking water.

"I'm from way to the west. Coast of Anima." I still felt I had to keep in check what I told people, keeping my story straight, so when those things happened I had that 'oh shit' moment.

"How was it? Living that far?" She was pressing on the matter, which didn't exactly help either.

"It was nice. Quiet." A vague, but decent answer. But what is good is that it's true. _Think, think._

"Wanna know something I miss?" She nods, and I hesitate again, formulating the thought into something half coherent. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I was used to the sound of waves crashing down. Sometimes loud enough that it was hard to ignore, sometimes I had to try and listen for it. It had a nice rhythm, so I would focus on that and just fall asleep again. But here is just dead silence. It was just… something to get used to."

"What about you?" I try to change the subject by grabbing on to the sparse list of things I knew about her by pointing to the books on the table. "You said that you're planning on going to Haven by next year. You also already work, so why add studying on top of that?"

"Even in Haven they have classes like these, I just don't want to get left behind, " she answers. "But it's more of a backup plan that my mom talked me into," she seems to ponder for a moment, before continuing. "I say 'talked into' but it wasn't that hard, I know that being a Huntress is not exactly something you can do for life. You should know, you know two of them."

She goes back to studying, and I hadn't noticed it before, but the pages she writes on is riddled with tiny notes, detailing what she had done wrong.

Hours pass, the book I brought still remained closed on the table.

Soon, her mother comes back from work, and I recognize her as the same woman on the picture near the TV. I do get invited to dinner, but I refuse, saying I have plans. It was the weekend, which meant it was time for the weekly dinners. But it wasn't that that I was interested in.

John and Leona would tell stories about their time as Huntsmen, and I realized the point of those after a while. They were not just a way to pass the time, but lessons disguised as that.

The smiles from a troubled village when they received Huntsmen, that sometimes disguised something else. The gathering of stories. The problem. A horde of Grimm, or even just a single one, or a tribe of bandits. Parsing through the lies that would sometimes weave in when dealing with the latter. All the lead-up and strategizing.

At last, the gunfire.

I tried committing to memory every way they used the terrain to their advantage to deal with multiple enemies, using the forests of Mistral or Vale and even the sandstorms of Vacuo to hide their presence and picking bandits off. The more overt strategies of dealing with Grimm by just shooting them down, or blocking off their paths, clearly leading them to a place that was trapped.

The way I take to go back is not the shortest route by far, but it was the easiest way. I see the elevator taking people to the upper level of the city, which was still something I found weird. And it wasn't just a normal elevator, some of them were big enough to carry cars and trucks throughout the levels.

I look at the setting sun for a moment, I'd give it around an hour before it was gone, as it paints the land below, or the bad part of the city as I was told, exactly like a kid that didn't know the world.

The book seems to weigh a lot more now than it did when I carried it earlier. I still feel a force, almost pushing me into opening it right then and there despite the lack of light. Trying to get as much information as I could before the day actually ended.

Another part of me knows that it wouldn't matter if I read right now, it would be much like finding a needle in a haystack while looking through a PVC pipe. I knew I would start rushing because, in broad strokes, I knew the history of the central Kingdoms.

It started small. _I'll find the answer in this book about Mistral,_ became _I'll find something in Mistral's history_ , and then Atlas, Vale and finally Vacuo.

The books about villages and settlements were very sparse, most the material I found was about the Kingdoms themselves, and even then it was spotty when it came to Vacuo.

Sometimes all of it would get to me. I had found myself forgetting my own language sometimes, a word or another would slip from my mind. I would wake up, a dream of home still fresh in my mind, and I would hang on to it as best as I could by writing it down, in Portuguese, just like mom had taught me. I had piles of those, not hidden, but kept in a drawer.

Sometimes a question would pop into my mind, as if taunting me, not caring about the time. It would happen late at night when I was coming back from work, when I was about to sleep or when I was running. _What if I can't?_

A hand that lightly touches my back is enough to make me almost leap forward in surprise. I take one step, larger than the others, while turning around.

"I'm sorry," I recognize the voice easily enough. I hadn't noticed this before, but there's a certain quality to Pyrrha's voice, almost singsong in nature, and at the same time it's clear. "I called you, but you seemed distracted." She pauses for a moment, enough so that I could school my features. "It has been quite some time. How are you?"

"Yes, it has been quite a while. I have been… well." she sounded too polite and I cut the joke before I copy her tone too much. "So, what are you doing?"

I would say something about a girl walking alone, but she could probably defend herself better than I can. While I have just a book on me, I can see the sword and shield peeking from her back, and that coupled with what she's wearing tells me more than enough.

"Coming back from training," she answers. "The Mistral Tournament is just around the corner, so I have to put that extra effort. And what about you?"

"Paying back a favor." I refused to say I took this route because I was afraid of getting lost in the shortest way, even with a map and a tracking system in my pocket. "She helped me with using Aura, I gave her a hand in some studying." She hums at that, tilting her head and trying to read the title of the book. I knew that hum, had been on the receiving end of it too many times because despite my best efforts I was easy to read, but nothing of that sort would happen here.

"Empire's Fall," she straightens up just as I tell her that. It was an adorable thing that I had seen dozens of other times with other people. I always thought it was funny how someone could prefer to break their neck instead of just asking. "I was helping with a different thing. Physics."

It was an eye-catching title that I picked up on a whim together with two others that described in a little more detail the period before the Great War.

"If you ever want some help," I offer after she makes an 'oh' sound, a little surprised. I was playing the part of 'the artist' so it was hard to be offended by that. " _I_ don't guarantee it, but people said I helped."

"I think, that would be wonderful," or so she says, but there's not enough heart in it. It's a tiny falter on the words that she tries to cover with a smile.

"Planning on defending your title?" I joke, although I wasn't sure this was the right term. I was never one to watch sports. Pyrrha nods, determined, her lips tightening into a barely contained smile. "I'm looking forward to the tournament myself. I wanna see what I can do."

"You're entering?" That was a nice surprise for her, apparently.

"Not sure how far I'll get, but yeah."

"I think you'll do well," she's quick to say. "From what I saw you'll get through the preliminaries," it didn't look like she was just being polite either. It was an odd statement because it meant that she watched me fight Grimm and still managed to come out unscathed. In my head, the skill gap between the two of us grew quite a bit.

"Although in your division things might be a little different since there's no age limit," she continues, explaining herself. "Many fighters come from outside of the city for it. All of them with different ways of fighting." There's a smile when she finishes talking. It's a proper one. Happy. Excited.

 _Well, damn._

I wouldn't have taken Pyrrha — polite, prim and proper Pyrrha — as a battle junkie. _Although, maybe it was just the challenge that she liked?_

"It was really impressive how much you learned in a few months," she continues on. "Maybe you could train with me someday?"

I hesitate, enough that her smile breaks for a single moment. "Sure. One day," I couldn't reliably get a win against Bolin that in turn couldn't do the same with either Maya or Arslan. I wasn't sure how I stood in relation to other people. I hope I am surrounded by monsters because that would make things a lot easier.

I thank her for the earlier advice, saying that I should probably get going, and we walk in opposite directions.

The rest of the way is a long and nice straight street. I only have to take one corner instead of the dozens that suggested route would've taken me, which gave me time to debate with myself if inviting someone to eat would be alright considering I was cooking. But it's not my house, so...

When I get into the house I'm greeted by the whole family already there.

My eyes go to the clock as I wonder if I'm late, even though there were some vestiges of the sun on the horizon.

"I… thought that today we would eat at your house. I didn't even start anything yet."

Everyone is around the kitchen isle, various ingredients already spread around. I get back in time to see Leona plop down a huge ball of dough in a bowl while Eton has a cabbage in his hands that squeak every time it goes through the mandoline. Maya crushes what I think is garlic with the side of a knife, her mom telling her to run the knife until it becomes like a paste.

Seeing that scene gives me an odd feeling. Like I was intruding.

"I figured we could eat here tonight," John says. From the corner of my eye, I see the garlic being scraped into a bowl filled with ground beef, and Leona adds spoonfuls of spices, and with her hand, she mixes it all as Eton puts in his contribution into the bowl.

"These are…" I recognize the process. I had seen it dozens of times, though not in this scale. I had helped make these, though how much twelve years old me helped was debatable.

"Dumplings, yeah." Jake approaches, with a glass in hand. "You talked about it so much the other day that made me crave some."

I hear the familiar sizzle as some of the filling hits the frying pan. Soon, the aroma of garlic and ginger mixed with the meat filled the room. Leona picks up the frying pan, walking over to me with a fork in her other hand.

"It took me a while, but I think I got the seasoning right." She offers it to me, as if awaiting approval. It's good. It was seasoned just right considering there was also a dipping sauce. I tell her that.

"Now, go wash your hands and help me wrap all of this. I still haven't figured out how to fold it right."


	20. Chapter 20

I look at the ring a dozen steps away.

Without too much trouble I can see over the heads of the few people that, like me, probably decided that the waiting room in the back was too full for comfort. The ring is elevated, like a stage, a stray bullet makes some flinch as it hits an invisible barrier.

Number Fifty-Five pistol whips and kicks Number Fifty-Four away as the stock of his gun, something that looks like a sawed-off shotgun, unfolds and extends, turning into a staff.

I had conformed to the idea that a weapon like that would've both cost too much and take too long to learn to use it right. In my situation keeping it simple was best.

It still didn't help the little pang of jealousy I felt though.

 _I too want a cool gun._

What I found interesting was the grounds the tournament was held. Haven Academy itself. The building that stood above all others, connecting both cliffs. From what I read it used to be the Imperial Palace, but it was converted to a Huntsman Academy after the Great War.

The building where the tournament itself happens is on the end of the school grounds, giving both the spectators and fighters a general tour of the place, though entrance to most of the buildings is restricted. The only building that is open is the one right in front of the courtyard, and even then the people can't wander around being quickly guided to the buildings depending on what you were going to watch.

One hundred people this year, and that's just on the 'adult' side of the tournament. All handed badges as soon as they entered the building.

Fifty-Four barely beats Fifty Five by ring out with a particularly violent kick, and the next two go next, already prepared by the time the one supervising the whole thing calls them.

It's like a sea of people, parting in four as two contestants leave and another two take their place. It's no wonder why either, this wasn't the kind of place where it was wise to get in the way of other people, though I couldn't exactly discard that most of the people had simply an implied respect for whoever competed with them.

I feel the movement of people behind me, and then a hand on my shoulder.

"Here you are." John squeezes my shoulder. "When is your fight?"

"Last one of this block," the swarm of people surrounded me had dwindled a lot for some reason. "Shouldn't you be with Maya?"

"Yeah, but Eton and Leona are already there. She also already won her fight." I turn my head from the fight, looking up to him. He's smiling. "Early placement. Nervous?"

"A little."

He looks over the crowd to the door, he is tall enough to do that, gesturing towards it.

People give way to John as he walks by. Maybe it was the way he carried himself that even without his guns people could tell he wasn't quite normal. He only took out his guns, dual revolvers just like the way it was meant to be, when he was teaching me, which was something he pushed right from the start.

Handling revolvers, or any gun for that matter, wasn't something I was used to, or even had done at some point.

It was interesting learning that.

He used the different types of bullets depending on the situation. Air Dust when ignited could be used as a non-lethal option. Using Ice Dust, or even Lightning for tougher things, could immobilize targets.

Seeing the transition between bullets was something else. I had read how the man that taught him, armed with only two revolvers, killed an entire town that had turned on, and tried to kill, him. Fifty-eight people, none that were able to truly reach him. But it was different seeing it in person.

His hands become blurs, drawing his guns and shooting the dozens of hard-light targets the shooting range could put out at a time and that rushed our stand.

It was quick and overwhelming at first, and I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Grimm were mixed with humans and they all fell, breaking apart like broken glass. I noticed the way that some human targets were put down immediately while others simply fell before they could even do anything.

"Any last minute advice?" I ask as soon as we get out of the building. With fight after fight happening in the two floors of the building, there weren't too many people outside.

"Remember to relax your shoulders when you shoot," he says. We were still close enough that I hear the next pair being called. "You always tense up. That's why you don't move that fast."

We talk for a little while more, though that was the only advice he really had for me. We go from that to telling riddles, though that had taken more of our time.

Something catches his eye and I follow where he's looking. I don't see anything special, just some people walking around, the ones that had already lost, or the winners that, I think, were far too confident in themselves. One of them draws my attention because of the way he seemed to glare at us.

After a moment, he winces and rubs his temple as a woman pulls his arm.

When I look at John he has his eyes shut, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"You okay?"

"Headache," he says.

When I hear my number being called and we go in.

I found that the talk had helped to distract me from my own nerves.

I step into the ring, studying who I would fight, and he does the same.

Number One Hundred is tall and broad, almost titanic, wearing some kind of shoulder armor. He carried a monk's spade. A solid piece. Medium and short range, nothing I wasn't used to. I actually felt I couldn't have asked for a better opponent. I had my rifle, so he would charge, trying to close the distance as fast as he could and take the initiative. Of the ten shots, I could take half of those before he could get close enough. Had I trained more...

"Number Ninety-nine against One hundred," I hear the referee announce and push that line of thought away. Breathing in, I calm myself, knowing how quickly things could go bad, and what was at stake here. For me, there was the experience, knowledge of how I would fare against the world. For some of them, it would be the prize for the champion, or, if you really excelled, a place in Haven Academy.

At his signal, my rifle is at the ready, and I shoot.

Three shots, only one of which he blocks with the flat of the spade. He moves faster than I expected.

Letting him redirect the barrel of the rifle with a push with the crescent side of his weapon, my hand goes from stabilizing the shot to my hip, where I kept other magazines.

I kick off the ground, avoiding a swing to my legs. A half-filled magazine falls, and another takes its place.

He charges again, not willing to give me time to compose myself.

I focus Aura onto my legs and jump back, creating more distance this time. He moves from side to side, getting closer with each step. He swings for my legs again when he can.

Valiant effort. Thinking he could make me miss, taking maybe one or two shots on the process. Making my shots unstable by taking off my legs. Five months ago it would've worked.

I aim down, not at him, but at his weapon, stopping it in its tracks. Ice encases the spade, and while he tries to pull it free I switch magazines yet again.

One kick to his leg makes him kneel, while the other just grazes him as he jumps back. Number One Hundred lunges before I can shoot, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and pushing upwards.

I kick, trying to push him away, but he takes it, punching me back a number of times. I try to shrug them off, taking the shots on my shoulder and trying to block them while my hand slides up the rifle, pressing the release mechanism.

Leaving part of the barrel in his hands, I strike him with the stock. I put my weight into it, hitting him on the chin with enough strength that his head snaps back.

He staggers back, and I put Aura into the shot, giving it a boost. It's not just the sound that changes, there's a clear difference in power, enough to knock him back.

I find my rhythm in the fight. The man can't catch up, because the distance created because of Aura is too much for him to cover. The Ice Dust bullets cost too much, I had only bought the one magazine, but they pay their price when he tries to go for his weapon and finds it still frozen to the ground.

Resolved to get his weapon back, he plants his feet and pushes. The ice cracks and breaks, and he runs after me, swatting away some bullets while zig-zagging.

I couldn't step back, so when he gets too close, I prepare to leap away and circle around him. He thrusts his spade, blocking my way, and my boots dig into the ground to stop me from going.

He kneels, using the momentum of pulling his weapon to spin and strike at my legs again, stopping me from going the other way, but I see that.

I jump over it, shooting him once I'm on the ground again.

He figured out how to deal with me faster than I expected. Cornering me so I wouldn't just run again. It took me time to charge enough Aura to move the way I did, and he probably noticed.

I jump back, using the time to switch back to Ice Dust rounds. He takes that moment, the single instant it takes me to reload, and charges at me again like a bull.

I aim down at his feet, shooting the ground and freezing part of the ring. He slips, in true comedy staple fashion, falling on his face. I shoot his arm, binding it to the ground. And then striking his head.

Soon enough the referee ends the fight.

John raises his hand when I get close to him. I gladly slap it.

"He took more shots than I thought someone could," I say, checking the magazine. Seven rounds left.

"Yeah," he looks around. "You have to use Aura so it can do a little more." He pauses. "I'll go check on Maya. Do you want to come too?"

I say no, telling I should probably stick around here.

The second fight goes the same.

Next is a woman, closer to my age than the last guy, dressed in browns and creams. Revolver on one side of her hip and a knife on the other. Speedloaders hung from her belt and bandolier.

I stop her from moving as soon as the referee signals the start. She shoots down at her feet, shattering the ice and freeing herself, but having to take a direct shot for it.

Bullets fly in both directions.

Not for the first time, I wonder how could they just swat bullets out of the air like nothing.

I didn't dare to do that. With the distance we had between each other, I didn't need as much Aura to move around. I could see the way that the walls that surrounded the area around the ring rippled when a shot of hers hit it when I moved.

She reloads, and I use that opportunity to switch to my Ice rounds again, charging Aura to my legs. I shoot her, freezing her leg to the ground again, and I charge.

Leaping twice, I cross the entirety of the ring. I get in front of her just in time for her to raise her weapon, and I slam it away with the stock of the rifle. Grabbing the barrel of my gun, I bring it up, putting Aura into my muscles, and swing.

The referee once again stops the fight.

"We'll be taking a break." The referee says. "The tournament will resume in two hours. Fighters of the first match, do not be late."

John towers over the rest of the crowd, making it easy to find him. I see that Eton is with him, eyes widened, even if only a little. What does surprise me is the group that is with them.

Weird, the way they were looking at me.

"We got here just in time to see you fight," Euros says. "You're a lot better now. Not missing any shots."

"Picking the shots helps." I shrug. "The earlier guy cornered me a few times. If he moved a little bit faster I would've been hit a lot more." I look around, noticing that a couple of people were missing. "Where's Maya and Leona?"

"Maya wanted to confirm something about the tournament, and Leona is with her," John answers. "We'll meet them for lunch. There's a place in Central Mistral not that close to the elevators, so we'll eat there."

We make our way out, together with other hundred or so people.

I brace myself as a Fall breeze finds every entrance it can to under my jacket, there were even a few extra ones courtesy of an Irvibane before I came here.

"Do you think you can win the next fight?" Pyrrha asks while we walk. I make a point to remind myself to not judge how she dressed for her fights. The buildings we were next to, though, reminded me of one of the pictures that my parents had from when they worked in Japan before I was born. Really riveting stuff.

Thinking about what she asked, I wasn't sure. If I won them all, there would be five more matches. I noticed the way that my shots weren't so effective as I thought. I could deal with that by enhancing them with Aura or by moving around and shooting more. But, focusing Aura the way I did took time, and in case of shooting, basically burned it.

The Ice rounds were useful, a tool to hinder and give me some buffer so I could do what I did. And there was only so many magazines I could carry before it would just burden me.

"Maybe," I answer. "If they figure out how to deal with the Ice rounds, I'll probably lose."

I'm the one that notices a raised arm when I turn to talk to her. I raise my body, standing on the tip of my toes, seeing a dark head of hair walking towards us.

"Maya isn't with you?" Leona looks around. With her height, she too towered over most people. "I couldn't find her."

"We came here straight from Gabriel's fight," John says. "We haven't seen her."

"He stopped a woman from moving and beat her into submission," Eton chimes in.

 _What._

I open my mouth to object, but I find that I can't.

Leona pulls her Scroll, tapping away and raising it to her ear as if nothing had happened.

I still found weird that people here could just brush that off.

"She's not picking up," Leona explains. I was probably more worried than she looked, though it was hard to be. We were in a fighting tournament, in which she was participating. It was more of a bother than actual worrying that she didn't answer.

"We should go look for her," Euros says. "We can eat later."

There was a lot of ground for just one group to cover, so we split up.

One in each CCT tower, just in case she decided to pass through the passages on either side. One in the courtyard, in case she took the central entry.

I was tasked with going back to the building where I fought, and then heading to the other one across the academy's grounds if she wasn't there.

I was also really hungry.

My tendency to drift towards the edges of a group made standing between Pyrrha and Eton feel weird, even more, when I noticed the looks some people were giving.

We make our way to the building, and look around for her. Searching the building is easy, but the walk there is the problem. It's a sea of bodies, all walking in the opposite direction, most of them spectators considering they weren't carrying any weapons.

The only reason I don't try to look for her there is the color of her hair. She would've stuck out like the moon in a night sky. I hadn't paid attention to it before, but hair as dark as hers wasn't exactly common around here.

I see Arslan before she sees me. Her head's turned down, looking at her brother. He sees me, though, waving a tiny arm in the air. Already knowing what he's going to ask I fish a piece of paper out of my pocket.

He looks at me with a childish smile, and I could see the glee in his eyes. I wave my hand in the air a little, and with a snap, it's like I pulled a piece of paper out of thin air.

He smiles and claps. I hold back a sigh.

 _How doesn't he get tired of this?_

"Hey," Arslan finally says. "I met with Maya and she said you were fighting. How did it go?"

"I won both of my matches." I shrug.

She tackles me into a hug, exclaiming something about being glad, then she looks at the rifle I still carried with me. "Next time we practice you'll use your gun," she smiles, sweeter than it had any right to be with that phrase.

"We can try that," I say. "Have you seen Maya? We're looking for her before going to eat."

"I think I saw her going straight after leaving the building," her brother reaches for the paper that's still in my hands. "There was someone with her. Blue eyes. Tall." She puts her hand a little past my height.

"We should really go find her," politeness be damned, I'm hungry. "I'll try and go watch your fights."

With new information, we walk a little faster.

Pyrrha takes a hand to her mouth to hide a yawn, and I see Eton doing the same. Like a virus, it spreads, but there's something else on my mind right now. A sense of discomfort that I couldn't exactly pinpoint.

Both of them yawn again. And I see other people doing the same, they rub their eyes, and pick up their pace, some kids are carried, nursed by their parents. On the couple benches I see on the way, there are people sitting down, slow and sluggishly gesturing and talking .

A few more steps and I feel a tug on my sleeve. Eton leans on me for a moment, staggering. He apologizes, but I just wave it off.

"Maybe we could ask the guard?" Pyrrha says, after covering a yawn with her hand.

It's the smallest building there was in the Academy's grounds. I don't care why it would need guards at this point.

The discomfort I felt was growing enough that I stagger enough that Pyrrha has to catch me.

"Are you okay?"

My head hurts. Like nails started being driven into it with each step.

"Headache," I say. "We should find Maya so we can go get some food already."

The guard just stands there beside the door, even when I talk to him, a vacant look in his eyes, not even looking at me. I look around, noticing the door not completely closed. I try talking to him again, not even trying to hide the way that it annoyed me, while on the back of my mind I recognize that maybe they're like the Queen's Guard.

My headache peaks all of a sudden. Vision blurs and darkens, and I lose my footing again. I topple forward when I feel weights crashing on my back, pushing me forward.

I have half a mind to turn, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact as the door swing open.

Sometimes, things click.

The light from the open door floods the entrance of the building, revealing the way that Maya stood there. But she's not alone when we find her.

The man whips his head around when I crash into the room. His eyes are wide in surprise, and so blue that they were almost inhuman. He's tall just like Arslan had said. Dark hair that reached his shoulders, a strong jaw. And so familiar for some reason.

There are many things that point to me that something's wrong here. The way that Maya doesn't talk, or even try to explain what she's doing. The way that she simply stands there, unnaturally still, as if an invisible force impeded her movement.

But it's her eyes that sell it. It's unnerving how her eyes are watering and wide while the rest of her face is plain.

He looks at me, piercing blue eyes hiding behind a squint.

An image clicks in my head as I fall to my knees, fingers digging into my scalp, trying to get the hot needles that felt like were piercing my brain. It felt as if my body stopped existing and the only thing left was that glowing heat of pain.

I see the strap on my shoulder loosen as the rifle slides down my arm.

I don't think. I'm not sure I could. Warmth fills me as I just grab the rifle and shoot. The bullet whizzes past him, at that point, a mile or an inch would be the same. I feel the pain easing, and it's like a veil is lifted from my eyes.

 _I know who he is._

It's his smile that gets to me. Twisted and sardonic. Something that grew more and more.

"You're a broken one, aren't you?" I hear him saying between the ringing in my ears.

 _Mordred._


	21. Chapter 21

_Mordred._

"Run!" I feel my throat ache after yelling. I pull the rifle to my chest, but my vision doubles all of a sudden as my headache comes back though not as bad as before.

Still kneeling on the ground, I look back when I don't hear any struggle. I shut my eyes and open them again, trying to see clearly.

Both of them are still there. Laying down on the floor, close to the entrance. But there's no one else.

No guards come, or other people that had heard the shot. There's not even a commotion outside.

I feel a chill down my back. My heart picking up the pace as I realize what I'm up against.

I remembered much of what had happened the first couple of weeks I woke up here. Ranging from weird to uncommon. Luci was the former, camping outside was the latter.

Grimm were outside of that. They were an unknown variable for weeks. Attacks at night, where they would blend with the background, the handful of them were dispatched by Luci easily enough, in the dark of the night.

There was a mysticism in it that was blown away, though not completely, as soon as I got to Mistral. How were they born? Why did they disappear?

But Mordred... is a different kind of package.

 _I know him._

When I saw him what came to mind is what he did, what he tried to do. What he's doing.

I need to get them out.

I turn to him again, my sights filled with the darks and reds blurs of what he wore. I see his arm raised, putting up one of my own to block a strike to the head.

Head meets hard floor and bounces on the wood. Disoriented for a moment trying to keep myself awake, I feel the kick on my stomach.

My heart thumps painfully for the moment I'm airborne. An idle thought comes to a hurting mind.

 _He's strong._

From the corner of my eye I see Pyrrha and Eton still laying down when, with ice cold hands, I push myself to my feet. My shirt clings to my body under the jacket, goosebumps running all over my body.

 _...Training._

Not a lost cause yet, I didn't drop the rifle.

Though I can't shoot, I shouldn't have in the first place. With the headache becoming more bearable I could see that.

He walks over to me, the movement deliberately controlled and he sneers all the way, as my visions double again almost like a taunt, and he throws a haymaker.

I lean back to dodge the strike, pain moving around my head like water swirling in a cup.

Stepping in, I drive a fist into his stomach with enough strength that he stumbles back. The strike goes all wrong, he's far too close, but even then it doesn't feel like hitting flesh, the same steel cable-like resistance Grimm had fight back the impact.

His face twists in rage. He tries to speak, but the only things that come out are dry barks.

Just the easing of pain is enough to make me focus. Maya is still locked into that unnatural still position, behind me there's still no commotion.

I hear who I think is Pyrrha stirring awake.

 _Good._

But I don't dare to turn my eyes away from him.

Mordred's face settles on baring his teeth, and I watch as a red light from within him runs from his head and down his right leg. His skin then changes like a chameleon's from rage-induced red to black.

There are growths on his side, visible even from under his clothes, and they swell and swell, only to burst and stick-like members extend.

In the blink of an eye, the man transforms, leaving in his place a chest-high, nightmarish seven-legged creature, but isn't completely gone. I see the same face that had disappeared into fangs and many eyes sprout from the spider's back, blue eyes standing out against his black body.

He could've brought a hammer down on my head and I would feel less pain at that moment.

He leaps, far more agile than before, and all I can do is roll away. He lands far more gracefully than I would've thought possible, leaving marks on the floor where he touches down, and I see the blood red mark on his belly.

I raise my arms, attempting a swing of the rifle like a hammer on one of his legs. I hear a dry crack followed by a screech when Mordred tries to swipe my strike away.

Sweat stings my eyes, and I fight back the urge to wipe it away.

Any idea that his leg broke with that goes out of the window when I see him skittering towards me, legs tapping on the hard floor.

Two of his legs raise, one after another, but they don't just strike. They hit me on the shoulders, pushing me back more and more.

His body presses against mine when we reach a wall, and I let go of the rifle and it hits the floor with a clatter. I grab the fangs with bare hands, keeping it away from my head. I push more and more Aura into my arms, trying to rip the fangs open and I feel the burn of it even through my Aura.

I feel the tiny hairs digging into my palm as I try to push his face away with one hand, while with the other I reach into the pouch where I kept a magazine.

I push against the wall while shoving the magazine in between the fangs — they clamp down and close more and more around my hand when I do — and cram Aura into it. I reach into the bullets and rock the balance that was processed into the Dust.

Ice blooms from the magazine, enveloping my arm to the elbow and Mordred's spider head.

I'm unsure if it's by surprise or pain, but he doesn't move for a moment. The head-splitting pain is gone too, and that's all I need.

I see Pyrrha pushing herself up and looking around, hesitant, scared.

"Aura!" I try to tell her. There's a plead in my voice, more than what I had heard since I came here. I can't afford the time. "Go to John!"

Terrified green eyes meet mine.

"Go!" My throat hurts again, and there's a hot, molten-lead like feeling on my stomach that I redirect to Mordred when I see her stumbling out of the building.

Just a little more, I think while throwing a punch.

I see its blue eyes looking around and settling at a glare for me. One leg hooks around my neck and pulls me close, and I feel the other legs snaring my own trying to take me down.

Using the frozen arm as leverage, I almost climb on Mordred's back when I reach for his human face. I claw at it, desperate, trying to do as much as I could.

He shakes his body like a bull. Enough that the only thing that holds me up is my arm frozen to his head.

I'm disoriented, but still clawing at his eyes, as he spins around. He tries to bite me, but I don't care at that point, what I do care is when we rush towards a wall, and he crashes my body into it like I was his personal airbag.

The ice shatters, and I fall on the ground slumped against the wall, exhausted. My eyes meet Eton's on the entrance as a wave of dark blue light washes over me. He's still laying down on the ground, petrified, but not in the same way Maya was.

My chest hurt, and my lungs were burning. But I don't dare to look down. I follow Eton's eyes where Maya probably still is. Mordred stands between her and me, several tar eyes meeting my browns.

I see one of his legs raised, its tip looking viciously sharp.

I see it coming down.

And I feel the pain as it pierces something.

He gets close, uncomfortably so, several beady eyes looking at me.

"Why?" He cries. Cries. I barely register Eton crawling towards my rifle across the room.

My vision grows hazy, but I see shadows starting to loom over the floor, and I feel a bit of satisfaction when I realize what they mean.

 _Time's up._

I fall on my side, my face touching a warm and viscous liquid. A muted explosion sounds in the distance, and then another shriek, this one far closer.

I see the dark mass leap as the world dims around me.

_

The world is a blur when I wake up. Slowly, blobs of color go into focus, and I see tired and worried faces. The only sounds that fill the room are the constant beeping of the machine and the chattering of some soap opera, followed by what I think was the opening song.

They light up as I struggle to even lift an arm, trying to remove the tubes stick out from places that they shouldn't, drawing attention to my bed.

"You shouldn't move for now," Leona speaks softly and low, and places a hand on my arm, gentle enough that I don't even feel it over the covers.

I see Maya slipping out of the room, calling for a nurse. I close my eyes for a moment, and the memory comes strong.

"That guy..." my voice sounds hoarse as if I had gargled gravel. One cough sends a flash of pain on my ribs strong enough that I expel all the air in my lungs so that it doesn't happen again. Jake moves, filling a cup of water, and then placing the straw near my mouth.

A doctor comes in as I suck the water, keeping it in my mouth. He's balding, graying hairs shaved. He checks the chart, looks at the monitors that frame the bed. The pain had set up an alertness that I could feel dimming by the moment, and there was something Jake needed to know.

"Do you remember what happened?" He too speaks in a soft tone. I nod weakly, the bare minimum of a movement, not trusting the chance of another cough. Maya hangs on the room, close to the walls.

"You got banged up pretty good. You got here with broken ribs, broken arm," he continues the list. "Your left hand suffered some damage from the ice. Punctured abdomen, but luckily there wasn't significant damage to the organs." Weird, that he could brush off the ice part so easily.

My mind dulls, and I feel tired. I hear him talking about how fortunate I was to have Aura, since with it the risk of any permanent damage was low and that I was being given something for the pain. I shake my head when the doctor asks if I had any questions, and then he leaves.

My eyes wander around, and I take a good look at their faces. Maya averts her eyes from me, looking to the ground instead. Jake and Leona have bags under their eyes, but the relief they feel is apparent and lightens it up, even if it's just a little. There's a lot more under that.

Jake meets my eyes.

 _What happened to Eton?_ I mouth the words, my throat still feels dry, and Jake puts the cup close to me again.

"He attacked Eton and got away," I hold back on another sip, fortunately. "We had to take care of you two. But Eton's okay, " Jake tries to reassure me as the beeping sound of the heart monitor increases, and I have half a mind to try and calm down. "Eton… he can use Aura now."

" _The man… Mordred…_ " I say, my voice still hoarse.

"We'll talk about it later," he affirms, with no room for discussion, one hand resting on my uncovered arm. "You need to rest for now."

I sink into the bed at that, my eyes rolling shut. Everything is okay.

I lick my lips, feeling the slight sting of what's supposed to be a beard. One deep breath and there's a pull of muscle on bones when I do. I try to focus, to lift the haze on my mind, but the thoughts soon trail off, turning into nothing.

I open my eyes, trying to fend off the sleep, and I notice Maya looking at me. She averts her eyes again, and when Leona follows Maya's eyes I meet hers.

"The police might want to talk to you about what happened," she says. "An attack on Academy's grounds is a grave matter."

I look at Jake when I hear that as if to ask what I should say. Or rather, how much should I say.

"Just focus and tell them what you saw." _What I saw_ , and not _what I know_.

 _How is she?_ I mouth the question to Leona.

Maya had kept her distance, not looking at me once. I try lifting an arm, gesturing them to come closer, but it's a herculean task. My arm seems to be made of lead at that moment, and I feel the effort shooting through my ribs. The gesture is done only once, the arm connected to some IV fluids falling on my lap.

She apologizes the moment she walks up to the bed. Her eyes aren't red, they're a few shades lighter than that, and the bags under her eyes don't stand out as much as her mother's, but I could see them there.

" _Not... your... fault,_ " I say in between breaths, and I ponder how broken my ribs actually were. "What did he —"

"He wanted to know about me," Jake interrupts. "Wanted to make sure who I was."

"After all the time I lived here I hadn't seen someone with that kind of skill. Aura resists that kind of meddling, even if it's not up," he hesitates. "If I knew how, I would've taught you."

Ah, I think. Talent, but without someone to teach him.

"Tournament, how," Jake raises an arm, when I start talking.

"Don't talk," he pushes the cup close to my mouth again. "It went on as expected. Canceling it would've brought up more questions than it did by just postponing it by a couple of hours."

"You were mentioned in the news," Maya chimes in, her eyes finally meeting mine. "There was a lot more talk on the first day, though," she hesitates for a moment. "Do you... know how long you've been here?"

I lick my lips, feeling the rough of the beard. I go to ask for more water, but Jake's already holding the cup near me. One sip, that I keep in my mouth for far more time than necessary.

"Four days," this time my voice doesn't sound as hoarse, and there's no impetus to cough. My lungs still don't work too well though.

"I told you he would know," Jake smiles, relieved, while a stunned Maya looks between her grandfather and me.

I wonder what they talked about during those days, or how close I got to actually dying, that they wanted to talk about how I would react to things.

"Not, dead, yet," it's an unfitting joke, both for the moment and for me, but it's enough to make her crack a smile, even if it's just to humor me, when I do the same.

 _Good._

Closing my eyes again, I wished to be the kind of person that could joke or talk the tension out of a room.

I don't know how much time passed, I open my eyes, and occasionally nod along as they talk, when I hear a knock on the door.

I see Euros standing behind a man barely taller than her, followed by two other men. The man's graying hair is brushed back and voluminous, reminding me far too much of a mane. The brown coat he wore reminded me of one of the pictures that I had seen of Jake when he was an active Huntsmen. Though the crosses were an interesting addition, with all the implications.

"Is he still awake?" The man's tone is polite and his voice deep, radio-worthy really. A glance to Euros' face made it look like it wasn't a courtesy visit. Though it could be just the fact that she looked actually serious.

"Barely," I answer, the word coming out more slurred than I hoped.

"The hospital was asked to notify the police when your condition got better," one of the other guys says, he's wearing sunglasses indoors. Who wears sunglasses indoors? "An attack in the Academy's grounds is a serious matter, and —"

"What happened was… uncommon, " the man with the coat interjects, and Sunglasses' sunglasses don't do much to hide the expression he makes. "We're here so you could walk us through what happened that day."

He identifies himself as Leonardo Lionheart, the Headmaster of Haven, and the other two as detectives, and it's the first time that I actually have a sense of how big of a deal this was. It should've clicked the moment police walked in here. The soap was still going strong, and they were already here.

 _Painkiller might be a tads too strong._

I go through the story, telling them what I remembered. That we went looking for Maya since we got separated, and that no, I didn't know him. And that I saw people sitting on benches, tired, but I didn't pay attention to them, my head hurt. And no I didn't know why. Neither did I know how he did that.

Telling a story while having to take breaths every other word quickly becomes embarrassing.

"Did he really turn into a giant spider?" Sunglasses asks.

"That's what I, saw." The two detectives exchange glances. Sunglasses had a didn't-I-tell-you look, while his partner stares him down.

Funny, how the attitude of some people just rubs you the wrong way. I really didn't like Sunglasses, he was a dick.

But what I find out is more interesting. Mordred hadn't come alone. Sunglasses' partner shows me a picture, asking if I recognized the woman in it.

"I fought her, second round."

Both of them came from a village in the north, a day before the Tournament started, and left before the Tournament had even restarted.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he says, gesturing to his partner and leaving the room.

A moment of silence, that I use to sink my head into the pillow. I feel my blinks becoming slower and slower.

"I am truly sorry about what happened," Lionheart says. "You showed great courage, without you —" his voice disappears for a moment, and when I open my eyes again he smiles and nods. "I believe it's better if I leave you to your rest."

Euros lingers a little longer, not moving together with Lionheart. She gets close enough that I have to close my eyes and her hair tickles my nose.

It's a whisper that I don't quite understand, but I fall asleep to it.


	22. Chapter 22

Within a day I wake up and fall asleep countless times.

After a meal — I didn't remember having breakfast, but there were vegetables in this last one, so lunch, maybe — I end up asking to be taken off the painkillers.

It was making it difficult to focus, and I needed that more than a few hours of pain-free time. Though I massively underestimated just how badly did I get beaten.

My hand hurt enough that I couldn't close it without feeling shocks running through my arm, the damage was far more substantial than I thought, piercing my skin and breaking my arm when we crashed into the wall, which had broken my ribs and made breathing particularly difficult.

 _Don't underestimate the were-spider again._

 _He can't fuck up my mind, but he can still do a number on me._

And wasn't that an interesting thought? The son of an eldritch creature can't do what he does best to me.

Although cleared of the haze painkillers brought, I could actually think straight for once.

 _Mordred._

When I saw him, what I thought about was what he did and what he was created for.

More literally than I would've liked. The kid is the son of the Devil.

Because that's what he was in the end. _A kid._

In a mix of magic, demons, and technology he was born to four parents. All involved in some weird way. It's a clusterfuck of a process that took the whole series to resolve, all with the intention of stopping and killing his human father. And follow his namesake.

Though there wasn't a betrayal there. At least not in his part. He never had the chance to get close to him.

He's alone the moment he's born, rejected and shot by his mother. Growing far too fast because of his demon nature, he hungers more and more. Craving food at a rate too fast to be satiated at that point.

My loneliness was partial, I had Luci with me, but those weeks were still engraved in my mind. Setting up camp, and a fire, the barest of noises waking me up.

After getting here, I understood his hunger, at least in part, far better than I did before. I understood the stupidity that's born from desperation that makes you eat something you think might make you sick.

It didn't excuse what he did.

"Trust yourself," Jake had said to me after I told him what I remembered about Mordred. "You did what you thought was right."

He goes home, leaving me alone for the night.

Hospitals are boring, not much to do.

Morning news comes, and with it the outside perspective of what happened.

"New information on the case suggests that, although not infallible, the man is able to manipulate minds to create illusions, which might explain the giant spider citizens had seen climbing down from Haven's grounds on the day of the Tournament."

They were wrong, of course. Although linking 'putting everyone around him to sleep' and 'giant spider' made more sense with illusions than thinking they were different completely different sets of power. I'm not even sure if they had seen that kind of Semblance before.

"With the attack happening on Academy grounds, the administration of Haven's current Headmaster, Leonardo Lionheart, has come to question." I turn my head to the TV, where they were showing a picture of him. "With its recent growth, the long-standing tradition of Mistral's Tournament was moved to be held in Haven, with the objective of deepening the ties between the Kingdom and its future protectors. This morning, protestors have stated that such scrutiny is only happening due to the nature of Haven's current Headmaster. Spruce Flaxen is on the scene, with more protestors. Spruce."

I sink my head into the pillow when I see what kind of protest it is. Faunus fill the background, various banners proclaiming equality for Faunus.

There's a moment that I wonder what else I missed while doped up on painkillers.

With the way that my arm had broken this time I couldn't work, even after the two days after leaving the hospital it took for me to be able to breathe normally, although the manager of the restaurant takes it far better than I would've thought.

"I understand. Mr. Chambers told us that you would be indisposed for a few days." There's a pause on the other side of the line. "We had a few people leaving their contact information to you since we couldn't pass yours to them. They want to talk about your songs."

I breathe in deeply enough that my ribs hurt.

A relatively easy way to get money with what I had. That's what I thought about when I started playing songs for work. I hadn't thought that it would get this far, that there would be enough interest to get to this point. A little bit of pride comes from their interest in the songs.

 _The songs._

 _Of course, they're good._

"Gabriel? Still there?"

"Yeah," I had gotten up from the couch at some point. "Just surprised. That's all."

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and I hear the manager chuckle.

"With how much tips you get you really shouldn't be. I'll send you their info," he says. "Just don't become like Redd." He laughs again.

There are only three numbers on the list, but I remind myself that the fact there's a list at all is supposed to be impressive.

I ponder calling at that moment, but a cool head prevailed. A little research, about the process one would one go to sell songs, and after that, about the names that were left for me.

It's a week until I can take off the cast and move like normal.

"How did your meetings go?"

My hands ache as Eton leaps back after an attack, the handle of his weapon contracting again.

His weapon reminded me far too much of a cricket bat, though the extending handle did catch me by surprise when he sticks the bat into the ground and fires, charging forward far too fast and the change in range had gotten me.

He designed it himself too.

"Just talk on terms," I answer. I found out that sparring with Eton had a lot more talking than the others. "I think that one of them was the one that tried to get me robbed."

"Someone tried that?" He has to redirect the attack to try and get around my guard. Overhead strike turns into a horizontal blow to my ribs.

With all the accessories the weapon had, it was deceitfully heavy. Eton had allowed me to pick it up — offered, really — and I gave it a tentative swing. It heavy enough that the momentum carried whenever I moved it with only one hand.

I charge forward, body checking Eton into the ground.

At this point, I could've pummeled him, but that would render the point of the exercise moot. I wanted to move after being stuck with a cast so long. He needed to practice.

I just back away, not giving him my back. I learned to not do that.

"A few times," he gets up and brushes off imaginary dirty. "Always asking for my bag. One of them told me that it was for a job." I add when I see what he was going to ask.

"Why did they tell you that?" I look past him, towards the windows that I was sure his sister is watching us. He uses that opportunity to strike.

"I asked them. Very politely." I answer through gritted teeth while batting away his strikes. I have to take steps back as he gets closer and closer.

Eton rolls to the side of one stomp that's meant to push him back. He uses the momentum to strike my side again. Except that this one I block.

He tries to pull away, but before he can, my arms are already wrapped around his weapon. I step in close and grab a hold of his wrist, hurling him across the room.

To his credit, he lands on his feet. But he's also breathing heavily.

"Why do you think it was the artist?" He's trying to buy time, not that he needs to.

"I did some research. Top artist down on his luck, since six? Maybe seven years ago." I break a few rules of handling firearms as I put my arm over the barrel and lean on it. "There's also some rumors of his songs not being his, but there's a lot of that apparently, so…" I trail off. "Rested?"

He nods.

He runs at me, swinging his weapon with one arm. I lean back, dodging the strike and the bat whizzes by. The momentum carries Eton until the bat is stuck in the ground again.

I feel the blunt impact as his boot strikes my head, making my head spin for a moment.

Without looking, I swing the rifle at him.

The ground shakes as he fires again.

I don't see him when I look around, but it's the laugh that makes me look up.

Barely in time, I bring my rifle up to block. The strike somehow carried enough impact to make my knees bend, and Eton's body follows through, and he crashes into me.

For a moment, we're a pile of limbs.

I recover first.

Under the right circumstances, I could probably bench press five of him, so it's easy to get him off from me.

He's by far the more acrobatic of the people that I had fought. So, to cut that off.

I roll and push myself off the ground to stand as Eton starts to move.

A buzzer sounds as time runs out.

If looking only at the numbers on the screen, these would've been the either most boring spar or the most atrocious one.

I was barely in the yellow after fifteen minutes of fighting, and Eton found himself still in the green. I hadn't hit him that much, but when I did it was at fairly full force, the fact that he was still in the green was really weird.

The door slides open, and Maya comes in.

She hands me a bottle of water before I can reach my bag to get my own. I fumble as I thank her, trying to nest the rifle on the crook of my elbow and taking off the cap, before she takes it off my hands, and opens it for me.

Eton grabs a bottle of his own.

"Isn't that the jacket you wore for the tournament?" And by that Maya meant the jacket I was using when Mordred came.

"I had it cleaned," I was surprised to see that the jacket hadn't been damaged even after all that. A bit bloody, yes. But relatively intact.

"But it has these holes in it," she pushes her finger in one of the rips.

"I think it gives it personality," I pull away from her, smoothing out the holes. "It was there for all the big moments. Like when my Aura got unlocked, or when I joined a tournament." Or, like I thought to myself, the day I almost died and the other day I almost died.

I don't have to make my way out of the room, none of the others had the same 'hurl people across a room' problem I had.

Theirs was closer to real combat.

Even with his sister actively attacking back Eton still moved freely around. He's by far the most acrobatic of the people I had practiced with, the momentum of one attack being used to carry out the next.

One big swing that buries into the ground, followed by a leap and a kick, and then he triggers his weapon, launching himself forward or extending the handle.

It's impressive, yes, but despite myself, I find my mind focused not no the techniques that they show — there's something to be said about the way that Maya could redirect a blow with so little movement — but the terms that the company men talked about.

My mouth feels dry even as I take another sip of water.

A part of me ponders if I refused the thought even coming to my head of publishing music that wasn't mine simply because it was another piece of the sentiment I got when I received my documents.

With the way I was doing things now, I could pack up my things and go. At most, I would be mentioned as a passing thought after.

Both talked first as me being the musician, the singer. One of the company men then talked about a song-by-song basis, but it's the other one that put me deep in thought.

Long-term. I would be paid weekly so I could write songs. The period, for now, was a year. _Although_ the man smiles, a polite mask, _if your songs are as good as I think, you'll probably get a better contract_.

 _Time._

I sigh.

One breath in, and I focus a little more. I'm not worried about the terms, even if it's a little weird to meddle this much in another world.

Even more so after seeing the similarities. The buildings, the clothing, and the food. I could be taking the opportunity from this world's Beatles, Queen or Elvis, giving it to someone else instead.

 _Flip a coin, and choose._

And with that, a couple of days later, Concord Music took me in with a long-term contract.


	23. Chapter 23

I pull my jacket closer to my body and stir in my seat, my nose hurting when I breathe in dry and cold air.

"Wake up," a voice, soft, but annoyed. I'm lightly shaken awake, and I open my eyes. "We're here."

I grunt in response.

With the base of my palms, I rub my eyes. The odd hum of the airship's engine that I fell asleep to is gone, being replaced by the feel and sound of the other passengers shuffling down the corridor.

The seats were really comfortable. I hadn't even noticed when I fell asleep.

I grunt again, just to make sure.

When I open my eyes again, everything is blurry and unfocused, the fruit of hours of staring at a screen and far too little sleep.

"Rockstar's life getting to you?" Eton peeks over his seat. He might actually be worried, but the tone is everything but that. His mood improved a lot after awakening his Aura, something to do with beating up everyone he had fought so far.

"Don't joke. It's unbecoming," I try to say, but everything comes out in mumbles. _Damn._ I clear my throat. "Not a rockstar," my voice still sounds like death itself. "They started recording the songs I gave them, and asked me to be there."

"Wasn't this supposed to free your time?" My head tilts to the side at the sound of Maya's voice. "It looks like you're busier than before."

"It's temporary," we finally get up, and when I look back I see that Jake and Leona were already out. "Talking, and explaining things in a way that makes sense. It's exhausting."

Creating the rhythm, the drums, and bass, was also part of the job, and that took a good part of the last three months.

I hadn't messed around with recording or mixing software before, but at least here they had extensive libraries with various instruments and basic rhythms. These helped. I had no idea what to do with a drum kit, but all it took was a few modifications and I had a decent base, as close to the real thing as possible.

It did help that I had the songs already.

A cold wind whips my face when I get to the door. The sun has an odd burning sensation and I have to squint as I make my way out.

I turn around, giving the airship one last look.

I still didn't figure out how it could fly. It was a galleon-style, sails and all. Made no sense, aerodynamically or otherwise.

Not that the others were any better.

 _Winter break._

It felt weird invading their trip like this.

This village was a place for camping and hiking. They had lakes, by now they have frozen already, for ice fishing and skating. It was the village where Jake met his late wife. But it was also the place where Eton had broken his arm coming down a snowy hill. The village where they had spent countless vacations, both in Summer and Winter. Or so I was told.

It was something they did even last year, barely a few weeks before I met them.

I yawn, and the air that escapes between my fingers condenses into a cloud thick enough that I couldn't see anything for a moment. I could understand why Jake insisted with a 'you should take a break' instead of 'would', or 'could'.

The music industry was tougher than I thought.

Between recording demos to their specifications and writing down all the parts for guitar alone took almost as long as playing in the restaurant, though that was only for the first month.

While figuring out the software for the drums, one thought had come to mind.

 _What if I'm not the only one here?_

It pushed me to make it as recognizable as possible, to make it so that it couldn't pass off just as another similarity between worlds. And that… had taken more of a toll than I realized.

One deep breath and air that is cold enough that it hurts my nose fills my lungs.

Feeling better already.

"Are you okay? You fell asleep as soon as we took off."

Another yawn fights its way out when I try to answer.

"Recording of his songs started," Jake answers his daughter's question, and I point at him, nodding, still yawning.

"They said they worked better at night," I add, a nice feeling of relaxation spreads through my body as my mind clears when the yawn ends. "The drummer got really interested in his part. He couldn't figure out some things. That was kind of fun to see."

I zip up my jacket till it gets to my chin when a cold breeze blows by. Even if I wanted to keep my leather jacket, it wasn't quite fit for this kind of weather.

I use the time that it takes to get to the inn to try and wake myself up a little. The cold air helps. Taking a look around as we walk, I see that the buildings still follow the same Asian-theme, snow piling up on some roofs and around the buildings.

The streets were unexpectedly clear of snow, I could see the brick road to the point that I had to wonder if it was a job of some kind, clearing it from roads. It never snowed where I'm from, so I hadn't thought about that. _Is it the same as street cleaners?_

We get to a four-tiered building and I have to do a double take when I see the signboard that hung from a metal bar close to the entrance, the stylized letters looked far too much like one of the Japanese lettering system — either hiragana or katakana, I couldn't tell, never learned the difference.

"Good morning," Jake talks to the woman manning the desk inside. Her hair is kept in a tight bun, and her eyes are a bit red. "Reservations for two rooms, under John Chambers."

I take my time to look around the building's lobby.

Cream tiles, with a few smaller and black tiles on their corners, cover the floor. Opposite to the dark wooden counter, there's an entrance, and by the smell that wafts by, it was probably to a restaurant. On the corner of the room there's a set of stairs, and by it, a small table and a couple of sofas.

I see the pamphlets on top of the table, and when I walk over and pick up one of them, I see a small map of the area.

The walls surround the village in a perfect square. There's a hiking trail to the north, they even had stables close to the wall so you would be able to take horses around, and a camping area to the east, where the lakes also were.

Interesting that they had enough of an area free of Grimm for those kinds of activities.

On the wall behind the couches there's a series of pictures, and I'm not proud of how long it takes to notice that they were about the evolution of the inn, starting with a black-and-white picture of a smaller, one floor building made of logs, a man in his twenties standing in front of the inn holding who I think is his daughter in trunk-like arms.

The man gets older as the building gets bigger. First, it expands to the sides, and then it gains a floor, and then another. The smaller windows on the ground floor are replaced by bigger ones.

The man puts on some weight by the last pictures. I see a younger Jake in one of them, probably in his thirties, standing more than a head taller beside the gray-haired man.

"Hey," Jake signals me as they pass, pointing up the stairs.

I grab my bag and shuffle up the steps.

The same tiles from downstairs cover the floor here, dark wood accenting the not-pure-white of the walls.

The room is simple, two beds, a bathroom right in front of the door. Next to one of the beds is the entrance to the balcony.

The first thing I do is to throw myself on one of the mattresses as my bag falls by the foot of the bed.

"Tired?" I just groan in response. "I didn't get the chance to ask, but how was it? Your work." Jake continues.

"It was good." I roll on the bed to face the ceiling. "They… they were amazing. Brother and sister, bass and guitar. But their voices…" I trail off. _Their voices were something else._

I had done some research after knowing who would be the first to record one of the songs I gave them. _The Wild Hearts._ Fairly popular rock band, but not overwhelmingly so. Their albums were a mix between get-up-from-your-chair fast and heavy on drums, and something slower.

I heard some songs from them, but they felt a little... lackluster? At least to me.

"Anything you want to do?" Jake points to the pamphlet that I still had in hand.

I look at it again. I considered Winter more of a time to stay inside all cozy instead of walking around and going places. Summer was the time for that, just because inside the house became unbearably hot.

"I wonder if they rent horses here, that would be fun." I had learned how to ride a horse, but then again, it was Summer when I did. Though there were probably some differences between riding in warm and cold weather.

"You should go," he offers. "But after lunch. We're here for the weekend, so take your time."

"Did you come here for work before?" I ask him. "There's a picture of yours downstairs," I add.

"Ah. Yes," he pauses for a moment. "It was actually the opposite. The first time I took some time off work, on a recommendation from a friend. The village was smaller back then, and they had a bandit problem."

"Hall was a good guy," there's longing in his eyes. He looks at me for a moment, as if waiting for something. "He took in a girl that day, she's still running the inn last I heard. And she did the same for two sisters that came into the village a couple of years ago."

There's a knock on the door.

"Like clockwork," I hear him whisper.

"Good morning Mr. Chambers!" She barely reaches shoulder height and has to look up to see eye to eye. "It is good to have you back."

She had a very welcoming look. A big smile that reached her eyes, a very happy disposition. The kind of look that I had always put as the grandmother-kind.

"You don't need to come and greet me every time I come here Edna," he answers, taking a hand she offered.

She looks into the room and our eyes meet. I wave.

"Is he also going to follow your footsteps?" She jokes, and then gets on her tiptoes and whispers something to Jake, to which he just shakes his head.

"No on both of those. We're going to eat in a while if you want to join us," he says, and I could tell there was a smile working it's way on his face right now. "I want to show Gabriel around the village."

"Maybe tomorrow?" She asks. "I've been teaching one of the girls to take over the business, and she made a mistake. It's a little unlike her though."

She soon leaves, saying her goodbyes. Jake keeps the door open and gestures outside. I guess he wasn't kidding about the early lunch. I do enjoy the feeling of being able to lift my torso out of the bed without using my arms with no trouble.

Sometimes, it's the little things in life.

"We figured Gabriel would want to rest a little before lunch," Leona says when she answers the door.

"Things to meet, people to do," I say, and they both look at me. "You know what I meant."

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep for a while?"

"Food will help," I say after shaking my head.

Lunch is good. We end up just going downstairs. For a moment I think that the receptionist just changed clothes and started tending to tables. There are very minor differences between them though, the waitress has a tiny scar on her eyebrow. And just like the receptionist, she has red-rimmed eyes.

On a whim, I leave Eton to choose something for me. An overly sized bowl of noodles that only he and I chose. The broth was amazing, having just enough spice to leave a lingering heat on my tongue.

The last few weekends had been full with going to recording demos for the songs, so it had been a while since we ate together like this.

The food did make me feel better.

And so, horses.

"Do you have any experience in horse riding?"

"Yeah, but it's been a while," I answer, while Maya says no.

The kid that guides the horses stands more than a head taller than me and not even his winter clothes could hide how well built he was.

"There's a fenced off area close to the walls so you can practice," Yatsuhashi says. "I'll teach you once we get there. It's not hard, so don't worry." He turns to Maya.

Even before we cross the entrance's arc I can see that around the walls of the village is clear of trees and a dense forest in the distance to the left. When we do cross the entrance I see the path that would take to a small hill for hiking.

"Unfortunately, we had some rain, so the hiking trails aren't suitable to ride right now," Yatsuhashi says as he opens the fenced off area and gestures us in.

I put one hand on the horse's neck as he hands me the reins. Even I could tell it was well taken care of, the smell of sweat wasn't as strong as the one I remember. But the horse's smooth coat glimmers under the sun, and I feel the muscles twitching under its skin as it moves just like the one I did a couple of years ago.

"Start slow because of the cold," he warns me.

I put one foot on a stirrup and hoist myself up, settling on the saddle and straightening my back.

 _Ah._

There's something about this that I liked. It's more than just the feeling of being higher, I wouldn't be able to get the same feeling if I climbed on top of something. It's the connection to the ground, solid and unwavering.

"Take your time," Yatsuhashi smiles, a small twitch of lips.

A little bit of a press with my legs and the horse starts to move, and I leave Maya to learn while I get used to it again.

The horse goes around the fenced area with little to no input from me, I just pull a little when it quickens its pace. Little by little I get used to it, leading it right and then left.

Maya wobbles on top of the horse when it starts taking steps back. From the ground, Yatsuhashi pulls her hand closer to the saddle, and the horse stops.

I take a joyful walk to get to where they are. From higher up, I could take a better look at the snow-covered plains that contrasted with the dark woods and leaves of the forest. There was also a path through the forest I hadn't noticed before.

"That's the path the guards take to their post," Yatsuhashi says when he sees where I'm looking.

"Oh," I nudge the horse away from Maya's when she starts moving. "I did wonder how there was this much space outside the walls."

"There's a pretty deep river that runs that way," he points east of where we are and traces his finger until it's behind the hill. "So that stops Grimm from coming that way."

"That hill is steep enough that they can't climb it that easily. There are farms to the west and farther than that there are mountains and forests. So there are only two places Grimm can come from, and there are towers there to keep watch."

"You know the area pretty well," I say. "I didn't know half of that where I lived."

He pauses for a moment, looking down, unsure.

"If I want to keep this place like this, I have to learn about it."

I ask him more about the systems they have in place to defend the village, and find out that the guards take care of Grimm that come close, and if a group is too big, they shoot a warning flare up in the sky.

"And they do more than that," he continues. "Sometimes people get attacked by bandits and are able to make their way close to here, so the guards help them how they can. It happened the other day, actually." He adds.

Soon, the horse riding adventures end, and Yatsuhashi takes the horses back.

We meet up with the rest of the family and walk around the village until dinner time comes.

We end up ordering a big shared plate to serve ourselves from, and in the middle of the meal, a few drinks arrive, courtesy of the owner, according to the scarred waitress.

"So, what did you think about horse-riding?" Leona asks Maya. Something about the lighting of the place made me feel a little tired, and I could feel the looseness of fatigue spreading.

"It was more tiring than I thought," she says. "And how aren't you sore?" She asks turning to me, more annoyed than actually impressed. "I know you haven't done this at least for a few months."

"Because I used Aura and cheated," a yawn forces it's way through in the last word. "I also knew which parts to relax and which to put strength into."

I said that, but I still could feel some discomfort on my legs, just to the point I could feel them.

"It'll probably be worse tomorrow," I add, another yawn finding its way out.

I look down at my plate. I didn't like leaving food behind, but I wouldn't be able to finish it anyway.

"I'm sorry, I'll head to the room," I say as I get up from the table. "I guess I'm more tired than I thought."

I yawn another time before I even cross to the lobby. The receptionist is still there, and I wave at her as I shuffle my way to the stairs.

And when I wake up the next morning, it's to the acrid smell of old sweat and dirt and bouncing around in something hard.


	24. Chapter 24

_How do I get out of here?_

I sit on top of a crudely made bed frame, it's a slab of wood on top of four legs, that was topped with hay and grass wrapped in some rough fabric to fill in as a makeshift mattress.

It's newly made too if the smell of sap that leaked from the wood was anything to go by.

Hours had passed since I was coming in and out of it while bouncing around in a cart, whatever they had given me making my limbs far too loose to move around at first. I'm carried into a room with my head covered with a burlap sack, that somehow smelled rancid, the whole way.

Iron bars block the only window and the only entrance of the small room, a small heater close by, powered by some kind of Fire or Electric Dust. The corridor that the door leads to extends to both sides, enough that I from where I sat I could barely see light from either end.

I look to the other bed on the opposite corner of the room, but the guy that layed there was still unconscious. He's tall and scrawny, a couple of years younger than me, if that.

All it would take to wake him up is to stretch myself a little and shake him awake, but there were still things I needed to do before that.

I push myself off the bed, still fumbling a little, but firmer on my legs, and step on top of it. Even then, I had to jump to reach the iron bars that blocked the small window. I pull myself up, just to get a good look of where I am.

The height is the first thing I notice. High enough that without Aura I was sure I would at least break a leg if I fell from here. The walls that run across the little field of view I have are made of stone and broken in places, to the point I could clearly see the palisades placed on some spots outside the wall.

I could see a few huts and tents on the ground inside the walls, snow shoved out of the way of a path that looked to be walked on a lot. A fire was lit nearby close to a point where the wall was completely gone, a cauldron of some kind hanging on top of the flames, with a couple of guys around it.

The rustling of clothing makes me drop down from the window.

Even on the badly lit room, I could tell his eyes were wide, looking around as he sits up, hair yellow enough that it surpassed blonde whipping around as he does.

"Wha-?" He chokes on whatever he's trying to talk.

 _Well, shit._

It had been far too long since my heart beat at its normal pace and my lungs didn't have the same craving for air as when I woke up, so I had confused calmness with that odd emptiness I felt a couple of times.

There was too much about it that I didn't understand. I knew it affected other people, even more when I was like this, but I didn't know for how long, or how strong an emotion could someone feel. And he's the same.

From wide-eyed and looking around, he goes to hyperventilating, eyes static and wide as saucers.

From scared to terrified.

 _He's useless like this._

I push that thought away and try and talk to him. It's useless asking questions, he's far too into his own world, looking at me like a deer in headlights. But, all it takes is the right nudge. I consider hitting him to snap him out of it but settle for calming him down.

I have to mimic the breathing motion until he finally gets it, and starts taking deeper breaths.

"Do you remember what happened?" I finally ask him from across the room. Getting close to him at that point would've been counterproductive. "Were you in Shion?"

"Me too," I continue after he confirms, confused. "I'm just trying to figure it out."

I hear footsteps echoing on the hall outside and he stops himself from talking.

A jingle of keys and the door hinges creak as they open and a single person walks into the room.

The man is tall and wide, even his head is covered in leather and fur, but not the high-class kind that you would find in a store. Crude and badly made. Pieces stitched together that in the dim light I could barely tell if it all belonged to the same animal.

"Come with me, both of you," the man speaks in a baritone voice while pulling down a hood that revealed hair that seemed blood-red under the dull light, a tone serious enough that it doesn't give any room to negotiate. All I could do was follow for now.

The blond guy doesn't. He's stuck, all the time it took for me to calm him down spiraling down the drain.

It takes two steps for the man to cross the room and get to the bed, the thought of defending the other guy comes to mind, it would be the right thing to do, but I wait.

He grabs the kid by his shoulders and simply lifts him off the bed.

"Move."

Three steps and he's through of the door, peering inside.

He simply gestures towards one side of the corridor when we get out of the room, like a maître showing the way.

The corridor is not illuminated by torches like I thought, instead there are a handful of lamps spread across the wall, barely lit enough to see the floor. We walk, but I keep facing forward, not daring to even glance at one of the many doors we pass.

I could feel the man looming behind us, the way the shadows moved as we walked not helping the feeling. In the silent corridor I could hear the breathing of the guy that was caught with me, the soft rustling of his clothes, and something heavier behind us, definitely made of metal, bouncing with each step.

"Go right."

The only moment I move my head is when we go from the dark corridor to an open one. The arches reveal an open space inside the walls, snow covering everything, a dozen people walking across the courtyard to and fro tents set upon the snow, a dozen or so fire pits burning bright, and melting snow. It was also considerably less high than the view from the window.

I see a few kids running around, throwing snow at each other. They stop when a couple of men riding horses get through a heavy set of wooden doors in a slow pace and head straight for a crude-looking building. From the corner of my eye, I see the wall of the corridor we had gone through, stone, almost a palm thick.

"Through there."

We pass by a set of stairs that lead down and move to the only door that was open. And the first thing I notice is the high ceiling of the room we enter. It's not a big room, but it is covered with a single wooden table, bread and plates already set there, and a few chairs, all of them empty except for the one at the head of the table.

He's not the only one in the room, but the closer we get to the man that sits there, the closer to my own age he looks. He's thin, cheeks barely sunken, and just like the man that brought us to this room, he too wears a mix of leathers and furs, though his are a lot less stitched together, and more designed that way. What catches my eye is the purple under all of that, new and clean, not fitting with everything else I had seen here.

The other man's clothes are dyed in black, a cloak that barely reached his waist covering arms that are grasped his back, the start of a few wrinkles appearing on an unshaven face. My eyes meet his, and I all but duck down out of the way, staring at the ground instead.

The floor here has some broken stone tiles, but nothing close to outside. It's a lot cleaner too. We walk half the length of the table when a hand on my shoulder abruptly puts me to a stop.

"I brought them here as you wanted," the man behind us says. A fire pit burns, protected by some a metal grate and heating up the whole room. A pot hangs over the fire, bubbling away some kind of soup.

"Thank you, " the guy at the head of the table says, his voice soft and calm. "You can go now, Ibis. I'm sure you have matters of your own to take care."

Even with that, I could feel the man lingering at our backs. The kid at the head of the table smiles warmly, holding eye contact. I see the man by his side with the same expression, but something feels misplaced in his, almost stomach churning.

"Well," their boss, apparently, says after I hear the stomping of boots behind us heading to the door. I feel odd, pressure starting to build up in my head as if something was starting to squeeze it. I blamed the lack of sleep. "Both of you should be tired after the morning you've been through."

"Please. Sit," he gestures to the chairs on his right. The bowls set there are one seat away from him, close, but not enough for anything to be done to him. On the opposite side of the table, there's one plate closer to the head, where the older man takes his seat.

Not sure of what to do, I pull a chair and look down at the empty bowl. The seat beside me shyly rattles against the ground as the kid sits by my right.

"I'm sure you're both hungry," the head of the table starts, fingers drumming on the table. He turns to the man on his left. "Randall, if you would."

Randall gestures in the air towards the bubbling pot, and it simply… levitates.

It floats in the air, steady and unwavering, moving behind — I catch an amused smile when it passes behind their chief — and around the table. The ladle lazily stirs the pot before, raising itself and serving each bowl.

I stare at it, fascinated. My eyes meet Randall's — and something clicks.

 _Flagg._

A shiver down my spine.

 _Shit._

It's hard to fight back the urge to just get off the table and run.

 _Goddamn it._

My hands shake, and I pull them under the table.

 _Can't let him know. No, no, no._

I try to control my breathing when I exhale, and even then it quivers, though barely. Anxious sweat pools onto my palms, and I clench my fists hard enough that I feel my nails digging into my palms.

"Why?" A voice comes from my side, a whimper barely audible as the pot settles over the fire again. When I look at him, he's curled onto himself, nursing his bowl more for the warmth than any actual want for food."Why us?"

Purple-shirt drums his fingers on the table again, lips pursed.

"You're related to a Huntsman and a soldier," he says, gesturing towards both of us. "So you're here as… deterrent, and by now they probably noticed you're both gone. Nothing will happen to either of you," he assures us, "so, for now, eat," he gestures to the bowls in front of us. "Although I'm sorry about the lack of ingredients, we've had to share the food with everyone."

The soup is thin, bland and dull, the very few pieces of meat were tough and the handful of vegetables turned into mush with a poke. The bread that comes with it is dry and tough, enough that I have no choice but to rip it in chunks.

The kid beside takes the first bite, and I decide that not doing the same might arouse suspicion.

I eat with faith.

That Flagg wouldn't poison himself, as he ate from the same pot.

That whatever Randall Flagg was planning, it wasn't over, and that he wouldn't end everything now.

When I try to look up again, my eyes roam around the room. A foggy glass window kept the heat in the room, enough that with the soup I could feel sweat starting to form, and it clearly wasn't from this place. There was a clear distinction between the stone wall and the lighter area around the frame.

I also notice the flag that hangs on one of the walls, the yellow shape against the navy blue of the battered fabric looking familiar. _A fleur de lis_ , I think, _from The Man in the Iron Mask, or The Three Musketeers._

Purple-Shirt follows my line of sight, and drums his fingers on the table again, looking down and away.

"I think it's time for the two of you to go back," Randall speaks in a drawl, almost southern accent, standing out against every other person I met. The two of them exchange a look, and Flagg's hand hovers over the table as if telling the other guy to hold on.

"After you," he says, after deliberately moving slowly towards the door, holding it open. The smile on his face making me nervous despite its looks.

He walks behind us the whole way, and I keep staring straight forward, not even thinking of provoking him by looking anywhere else. Once again, the only sounds that fill the corridors are the steps, Flagg's almost calculatedly loud just behind us, and the almost panting for air from the kid.

I see him shaking from the corner of my eye, vacillating in his steps and slowing us down.

I have to force myself to calm down, trying my best to ignore the feeling down my back and match his pace. It's the blade of a guillotine, hanging over my head and that with a whim would come down.

A light shines at the end of the dimly lit corridor, shining just enough light that I could see a staircase going up.

"Wait." A single word that grows more amused in its length and sends shivers down my spine, and I feel the blood rushing to my legs, my body itself urging me to run.

The creaking of the hinges sounds far too loud in the small tunnel.

"You're staying here." With bated breath, I turn around and get into the room again.

Even under the dull lights, I could see his mocking smile as he pushes the door closed, the lock creaking and clicking soon after. Randall catches himself when he sees me looking at him, eyes narrowing.

My stomach churns, and I feel bile rising down my throat. I shoot forward on the mattress, leaning forward and covering my mouth.

His steps barely echo down the corridor as he walks away.

 _Flagg is here._

Shaking, I feel the hairs on my neck standing up. I grip my arms, fingers digging into skin hard enough to leave marks.

Quivering breath slowly steadies, and I welcome the nothingness as it returns, clearing my head.

 _This… changes things._

Whatever it was that was given to me, it probably came from his arsenal.

He could've easily poisoned the entire village had he wanted to, and that's exactly why he wouldn't do it. Not enough chaos in it, no chance for recruitment. _Far too easy._

 _I need to be careful._

If I tried to run away and he stood in my way, there would be nothing that I could do. He's immortal or at least close enough to that that it wouldn't matter what I could do. No bullets would be able to get close to him, though I'm not sure if it was just that gun — The Gun — or if it was something he could do whenever he wanted to through magic.

What did remain constant was that he always pit people against each other. Chaos for chaos sake.

I hear a flutter of wings, and a shadow passes by the window.

 _And that._

Turning into an animal himself, turning other people into animals, or just controlling actual animals. All part of what he could do.

I hold back the urge to try to block the window in any way I can or even talk quieter.

 _If he knows I know, I won't get out of here._

One look at the kid and I see him hugging his knees, face buried in them, and something comes to mind.

 _Why aren't Grimm coming?_

Kidnapping couldn't be that usual if negativity attracted Grimm to their door. But that would mean that cities either had to be at least entirely neutral or that they would be surrounded at all times, and I'd seen that it wasn't like that, that there are levels to it. _How many people would you need to balance out the negativity of two?_

 _Something for another day._

"He said you're related to a soldier?" I start. The plan for getting out was running into uncertainties fast. I didn't know which way to go after leaving this place. There was the distance too, I didn't know how long would it take to get back, or if I would get back before whatever will happen.

The kid just looks at me.

"Yeah, my dad," his voice is muffled and somber, he hadn't lifted his head from his arms. "Military from Vale. Is your dad a Huntsman?"

"No," I dismiss that as the attempt it is. "I'm not even related to them." It didn't make sense that they would take me and not Eton, he's related to the two Huntsmen, and also the youngest. Less likely and easier to deal with in case of resisting.

I ask him if he has any brothers or sisters. And he has. Seven sisters, though two of them couldn't come, and he's not the youngest.

 _Someone didn't have a TV_ , I remember my brother saying.

"Do you think that they got to my sisters too?" The realization hits him like a truck, and I could tell the desperation was growing as his pitch goes higher and he talks faster. "They, they were in the inn with my mom and if they got to them…" I see in his eyes that his imagination runs wild. "I mean, their boss didn't seem the type, but… Oh, Gods."

"No, they didn't," I try to reassure him as I file the plural as another thing for another day. "If they did, we would probably all be in the same room," he looks confused, and I feel that I have to continue. "Fewer rooms to keep watch of."

He doesn't like the answer but seems satisfied with it when he looks down at his hands, though something in what he said caught my attention.

"Which inn?" He looks up again, and I repeat the question.

 _The same one I was._

Huh.

"Did you eat or drink anything before going to your room?" I ask him, probably more incisive than I meant by the way he winces.

"I- I didn't get a room. My dad was teaching me about camping during Winter," he answers, and I feel the little piece of a puzzle just fade.

I lean back, putting my back against the wall.

How I got here didn't matter, anyway. What mattered was how I was going to go back.

Think around your corners, I hear Jake say.

Breaking down a wall would take too much energy and time. This looked like some kind of fort or castle. Would attract too much attention.

I look out of the door, a clear line of sight to outside, and I remember the staircase at the end of the corridor.

 _I'd survive the fall._

"It was just too cold yesterday," he lowers his voice and looks down, starting again and trying to hide embarrassment. "And I wanted to eat something that wasn't soup or dried meat."

The how didn't matter right now, but it did make me feel a little better.

"But h-how did they even get us here?" his voice is high pitched and breaking, confusion and anxiety bleeding through.

"They had horses and a cart," I say while lightly banging my head against the wall as if an idea would just fall out. "Probably didn't move too fast so that it didn't draw attention," and I tell him that I woke up while we were on the way.

"My dad could track the trail through the snow. He taught me how." He's hopeful, and I'm not sure how long it'll last, but it's better than nothing. _Although…_

 _Tracking._

I realize that I'd been planning on how I would escape, without anyone else.

"Do you have Aura?" If he did, jumping out of the tower could still help, but he looks at me as if I'm speaking in tongues. "Yeah, nevermind."

The talk dwindles then, the only sounds come from outside. The laughter of children, not so forgiving parents, if the tone said anything, the creaking of hinges as the gate opened. All of it dies down as night falls.

The only light in the room comes from the red and warm light of the heater. It was getting colder too, I could feel the numbness starting to spread up my fingers.

Hearing sets of footsteps coming towards us I feel apprehension bubbling in me.

Shadows stretch before lurking over the entrance, blocking even the dim lights of the corridor, and I hear the jingle of keys before the mechanism of the lock.

"Winter has been especially… harsh this year," it's their young boss, and it's the first time I realize how weird that is. Ibis, the man that enters right behind him carrying some kind of lantern, is probably old enough to be his father, but the younger one is the one that's giving out orders. "I believe you will need some of these," he raises an armful of furs and heavy blankets, that I only see because of the lantern and passes half of the pile to each of us.

I want to scream at him. _Do not trust him!  
_  
But I can't.

 _My head hurts._

"I came here to tell you that you won't be staying here too long," he starts. "Only two more days, I promise. It'll all be over by then." He seemed to be reassuring himself more than us.

"Did you get my sisters too?" Blond kid asks, and Purple-Shirt turns on his heels, facing him. A light flashes in my eyes from the door, and I feel it burning down my eyes enough that it made my head hurt.

"No," there's weight in the way his blurry profile shakes his head. "I didn't even want to do this."

While I rub my eyes, I hear the creaking of the doors closing again.

"Why would you ask him that? He could've just lied to you." There's silence, what I suppose is a shrug, my eyes still haven't gotten used to the dark again.

"I don't know," I could hear how dejected he felt. "I just… feel like I could trust him in that. I don't know."

I couldn't understand it, so I leave it at that.

I go back to thinking on how to get out of here, and I find that there are some corners you couldn't think around.

 _Use everything that you have,_ I remember him telling me.

I lift the itchy fabric they use to cover the grass and hay from the corners of the bed, feeling my way around the bed frame where the leg met the bigger slab of wood. I touch something, colder than the surrounding wood.

If its head was anything to go by, it was one of the bigger ones, more akin to an iron stake than a nail.

 _He's not the only one that knows magic._

Flagg knows it better, though. Thousands of years of experience.

"Do you want to get out of here…?", I stop, realizing something. "I never asked your name."

"Name's Jaune," he says. The name sounds weird, like 'John' but pronounced weird, but I take that as a good sign. "Yes." Resolute, hinging on desperate.

 _If he wants chaos, I'll give him Chaos._


End file.
